LIBRARY     j 

UNIVERSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 

SAN  DIEGO 


9  I 


The  naturalist  and  his  friends 


HITTING  THE  DARK  TRAIL 

STARSHINE  THROUGH  THIRTY 
YEARS  OF  NIGHT 


BY 
CLARENCE    HAWKES 

Author  of  Shaggycoat,  Black  Bruin,  The  Wilderness  Dog, 
The  Trail  to  the  Woods,  The  Little  Foresters,  etc."1 


ILLUSTRATIONS  BY  CHARLES  COPELAND 
AND  FROM  PHOTOGRAPHS 


NEW  YORK 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 
1915 


COPYRIGHT,  1910, 

BT 
HENBY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 

PMithed  September,  1916 


DEDICATED 

TO  MY  FRIEND 

HELEN    KELLER 

WITH  SINCERE  REGARD  AND  KEEN  AP- 
PRECIATION OF  HER  BRAVE  STRUGGLE 
AND  WONDERFUL  ACHIEVEMENTS  UPON 
THE  TRAIL  OF  DARKNESS  AND  SILENCE- 


A   WORD   TO   THE    READER 

THIS  little  volume  is  preeminently  a  book 
of  hope,  courage,  and  achievement,  although 
these  essentials  to  happiness  were  only  attained 
by  the  author  after  many  discouragements, 
struggles,  and  heartaches. 

It  is  the  earnest  hope  of  the  writer  that  the 
reader  may  not  be  discouraged  by  the  strenu- 
ous character  of  the  first  few  chapters,  but  will 
adopt  the  author's  three  P's,  Patience,  Perse- 
verance and  Pluck,  and  read  on  to  the  happy 
ending. 

The  courageous  man,  with  a  true  standard 
of  life's  values,  is  not  impoverished  by  poverty, 
or  greatly  enriched  by  riches,  for  he  recognizes 
the  fact  that  the  only  value  of  circumstances 
to  him,  be  they  good  or  ill,  is  their  effect  upon 
his  own  life  and  character. 

To  fight  on  when  the  battle  seems  lost,  and 
to  finally  snatch  victory  from  defeat,  is  the 
most  sublime  thing  in  human  life. 


vi          A   WORD   TO   THE   READER 

So  it  is  to  make  a  better  optimist  and  a  bet- 
ter fighter  of  the  reader  that  this  book  is  writ- 
ten. If  I  can  help  you  to  hear  songs  in  the 
silences,  see  sunshine  in  the  clouds,  turn  seem- 
ing failure  to  success,  and  find  good  in  all 
things,  this  book  will  not  have  been  written  in 
vain. 


CONTENTS 


PAGB 

A  WORD  TO  THK  READER  ....     .     ..•    v     .     .     .     .  V 

INTRODUCTION.     By  Dallas  Lor*  Sharp  .     :•    :.     M    •     •  xi 

INTRODUCTORY     .......     :.;    i.     >:    M    •    •    .*    •  3 

CHAPTER 

I.     BLESSED  DAYLIGHT     .....     .     .      .      .      .  9 

II.    CLOUD  SHADOWS -.-    •.•     .     •.-     .  21 

III.  THK  COMING  OF  NIGHT              .     .•    M    ,.;    M     .     .  34 

IV.  SEAKCHIKO  FOE  LIGHT     .........  S3 

V.    THE  DAWK  OF  HOPE     .     .     .-    ;.     .     ....  71 

VI.    THE  LITERABY  STRUGGLE     .     ...•.»    •.     ..-  92 

VII.    WRITING  NATURE  BOOKS  WITHOUT  EYES     .     .     :.  114 

VIII.     PASTIMES  AND   RECREATIONS      .      .      .     ,:    ,.     .     >.  131 

IX.    THE  PSYCHOLOGT  OF  BLINDNESS  ....     .•     .  148 

X.    OK  THE  DARK  TRAIL      .     ..;.,..„     .  161 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

The  naturalist  and  his  friends Frontispiece 

Writing  a  new  animal  biography 4 

Watching  for  the  farm-boy 18 

A  suspicious  house 32 

Listening  for  the  little  foresters 54 

The  old  Perkins  Institute,  where  Mr.  Hawkes  studied  for 

five  years 76 

The  new  Perkins  Institute  at  Watertown,  Mass.   ...  80 

Master  Frisky,  the  hero  of  two  of  Mr.  Hawkes's  books     .  116 

The  eternal  struggle 124 

Going  for  black  bass 130 

The  author  at  his  Hadley  home 150 

Float  designed  by  the  author  and  shown  in  the  Quarto- 
Millennial  Pageant  at  Hadley,  Mass.  .....     .  166 


NIGHT   AND    DEATH 

Mysterious  night!  when  our  first  parent  knew 

Thee  from  report  Divine,  and  heard  thy  name, 

Did  he  not  tremble  for  this  lovely  frame, 

This  glorious  canopy  of  light  and  blue? 

Yet,  'neath  a  curtain  of  translucent  dew, 

Bathed  in  the  rays  of  the  great  setting  flame, 

Hesperus,  with  the  host  of  heaven,  came, 

And  lo!  creation  widened  in  man's  view. 

Who  could  have  thought  such  darkness  lay   concealed 

Within  thy  beams,  O  sun?  or  who  could  find, 

Whilst  fly  and  leaf  and  insect  stood  revealed, 

That  to  such  countless  orbs  thou  mad'st  us  blind? 

Why  do  we  then  shun  death  with  anxious  strife? 

If  light  can  thus  deceive,  therefore  not  life? 

— JOSEPH  BLANCO  WHITE. 


INTRODUCTION 

A  good  friend  is  better  company  than  a  good  book — 
Friendship  for  John  Burroughs  and  Clarence 
Hawkes — A  tragedy  in  the  swales — Milton's  "day- 
labor,"  and  his  blindness — A  boy  for  fourteen  years, 
and  a  man  for  the  rest  of  one's  life — Our  debt  to 
the  naturalist. 

NONE  of  Mr.  Hawkes's  books  need  a  com- 
mentary and  affidavits.  His  purpose  is  plain, 
his  story  simple,  his  language  clear. 

Most  men  are  at  their  best  in  their  work, 
the  labor  of  their  hands  being,  as  perhaps 
nothing  else  of  them  is,  the  combined  product 
of  hands,  head  and  heart — the  whole  man. 
This  is  particularly  true  of  authors;  so  true 
that  writers  are  seldom  as  interesting  as  their 
books.  Yet  this  really  means  that  the  writer 
is  a  man  who  can  most  fully,  and  so  most  in- 
terestingly, express  himself  with  his  pen;  for 
books,  the  best  and  greatest  of  books,  are  not 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

so  interesting  as  men,  the  greatest  and  best  of 
men.  And  indeed  almost  any  human  being— 
your  next-door  neighbor — is  better  than  most 
of  your  books  for  companionship;  which 
means,  that  if  we  knew  the  writers  in  them- 
selves, as  we  know  them  in  their  books,  we 
should  have  a  key  to  many  an  inner  room  and 
secret  chamber  in  their  books  closed  to  all  but 
the  intimate  few. 

This  is  truer  of  some  books  than  of  others, 
and  particularly  true  of  the  poets  and  nature 
writers,  whose  very  material  is  not  nature,  but 
themselves  acted  upon  by  nature.  Is  "Wake 
Robin"  only  a  book?  Has  it  made  no  differ- 
ence to  my  joy  in  it  that  I  have  had  John  Bur- 
roughs as  a  guest  in  my  home  and  sat  at  meat 
with  him?  When  I  read  "Shaggy  Coat"  and 
"Master  Friskey,"  "The  Little  Foresters,"  and 
"The  Trail  to  the  Woods,"  does  it  not  matter 
that  I  have  sat  down  and  talked  face  to  face 
with  their  author? — no,  not  face  to  face,  but 
heart  to  heart,  for  he  could  not  see  my  face. 

Born  with  eyes  that  saw  far  beyond  the 
range  of  the  average  child's,  with  a  poet's  love 


INTRODUCTION  xiii 

of  form  and  color,  the  child  grew  into  a  keen, 
eager  lad  of  fourteen,  with  the  joy  of  running 
streams,  with  the  motion  of  frisking  flying 
things  in  his  feet,  and  the  love  of  all  live  things 
in  his  heart,  until  one  day 

I  hardly  dare  think  of  that  day — how  often 
and  often  has  Clarence  Hawkes  had  to  remem- 
ber it! — whose  shadow  lies  as  black  as  mid- 
night for  him  even  over  this  very  April  morn- 
ing, this  day  all  blue  and  white  and  warm  with 
sunshine  for  me  in  the  spring  of  1915.  And 
that  black  day  fell  far  away  in  August,  1883. 

There  is  a  story  here,  and  it  is  told  in  this 
book ;  the  story  of  that  August  day,  when  the 
boy  with  a  new  gun  went  with  his  father  into 
the  swales  for  woodcock,  and  fell  all  but  mor- 
tally wounded,  both  eyes  forever  gone,  through 
some  fearful  mischance,  at  the  hands  of  his 
loving  father. 

Is  there  not  a  story  here?  No,  not  that  fear- 
ful story,  inevitable  as  it  must  be,  but  the 
story  of  that  boy's  fight  for  life — and  how  he 
won;  the  story  of  that  boy's  fight  for  work — 
and  how  he  won ;  the  story  of  that  boy's  fight 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

for  peace  and  strength  and  inward  light  in 
the  midst  of  this  darkness  and  solitude, — and 
how  he  won:  this  is  the  manifold  and  human 
story  to  be  told  in  the  pages  of  this  book.  Did 
ever  the  novelist  invent  a  more  thrilling  plot? 
Here  we  have  truth  stranger  than  fiction. 

His  books  need  no  explanation ;  but  surely  a 
knowledge  of  this  man's  heroic  life,  how  with 
sightless  eyes  he  has  beheld  each  scene  of 
these  many  volumes,  how  "with  light  denied" 
he  has  worked  on  in  the  outer  dark,  compelling 
God  to  grant  him  inward  light  that  shining 
across  these  printed  pages  is  now  the  very  light 
of  day  for  us,  and  eyes,  indeed,  for  him — I  say 
the  story  of  this  man  should  be  read  into  every 
line  he  has  written  about  the  out-of-doors  to 
give  the  simple  words  their  deep  and  human 
meaning. 

"Doth  God  exact  day-labor,  light  denied? 
I  fondly  ask," 

says  Milton.    By  "fondly"  he  means  foolishly, 

".  .  .  But  Patience,  to  prevent 
That  murmur,  soon  replies,  'God  doth  not  need 


INTRODUCTION  rv 

Either  man's   work  or   his  own  gifts.     Who  best 
Bear  his  mild  yoke,  they  serve  him  best. 

They  also  serve  who  only  stand  and  wait.'  " 

True,  but  God  does  need  man's  work — "day- 
labor"  indeed,  even  "with  light  denied,"  if  at 
any  cost  that  labor  can  be  performed.  And  it 
was  in  his  blindness  that  Milton  wrote  the 
greatest  poem  in  the  English  language — his 
"day-labor";  and  it  is  in  his  blindness — a 
longer,  more  terrible  blindness  than  Milton's — 
that  Clarence  Hawkes  has  written  every  word 
of  his  books,  drawing  on  that  priceless  gallery 
of  outdoor  scenes,  hung  in  the  halls  of  mem- 
ory before  he  was  fourteen  years  old,  his  little 
day  before  the  long  night. 

What  a  precious  thing  it  is  to  be  a  boy  for 
fourteen  years — and  what  a  great  thing  it  is 
to  be  a  man  all  the  rest  of  your  life,  through 
such  grim  odds! 

"Eyes  they  have,  but  they  see  not!" 

I  thank  you,  my  friend,  for  teaching  me  how 
to  see  many  things  in  the  world  of  field  and 
wood  about  me,  and  many  things  deep  in  the 


XVI 


INTRODUCTION 


human  heart  within  me,  that,  having  eyes,  I 
might  not,  but  for  you,  have  ever  seen. 
Very  truly  yours, 

DAT/LAS  LORE  SHARP. 

Mullein  Hill,  Hingham,  Massachusetts. 
April  10,  1915. 


INVICTUS 

Out  of  the  night  that  covers  me, 
Black  as  the  Pit  from  pole  to  pole, 

I  thank  whatever  gods  may  be 
For  my  unconquerable  soul. 

In  the  fell  clutch  of  circumstance 
I  have  not  winced  nor  cried  aloud. 

Under  the  bludgeoning  of  chance 
My  head  is  bloody,  but  unbowed. 

Beyond  this  place  of  wrath  and  tears 
Looms  but  the  horror  of  the  shade, 

And  yet  the  menace  of  the  years 
Finds  and  shall  find  me,  unafraid. 

It  matters  not  how  strait  the  gate, 

How  charged   with   punishment   the   scroll, 

I  am  the  master  of  my  fate; 
I  am  the  captain  of  my  soul. 

— WILLIAM  ERNEST  HENLEY. 


HITTING  THE  DARK  TRAIL 

INTRODUCTORY 

Why  I  had  to  write  this  book — Object  in  writing  the 
volume — What  I  hope  to  accomplish  in  telling  this 
story — The  blind  and  the  seeing — My  power  of 
visualizing  the  scenes  of  earth — The  helping  hand — 
An  all-around  man  and  an  optimist. 

IN  the  Summer  of  1909,  in  response  to  much 
urging  from  editor  friends,  I  published  in  the 
Outlook  magazine  a  short  autobiographical 
article  entitled  "Hitting  the  Dark  Trail." 

This  article  attracted  wide  attention  in  this 
country  and  Europe.  It  was  translated  into 
foreign  languages,  and  brought  me  a  deluge 
of  letters  from  almost  every  part  of  the  Eng- 
lish-speaking world.  Ministers  used  it  in  their 
pulpits,  in  place  of  the  Sunday  morning  ser- 
mon, and  educators  and  teachers,  having  in 
charge  the  inspiration  of  youth,  used  the  ar- 


4  HITTING   THE   DARK   TRAIL 

ticle  freely  on  both  public  and  private  occa- 
sions. 

My  object  in  writing  the  article  was  to  an- 
swer briefly  some  of  the  myriad  questions  con- 
cerning my  life,  which  are  always  being  shot 
at  me  from  every  side.  But  instead  of  quiet- 
ing this  fusillade,  I  actually  increased  it,  while 
many  letters  even  asked  that  I  might  be  per- 
suaded to  write  more  along  the  same  lines. 

This  correspondence  has  at  length  become  so 
burdensome  to  me  and  takes  up  so  much  of 
my  time,  which  to  me  at  least  is  valuable,  that 
I  have  again  been  forced  to  take  to  my  type- 
writer in  self-defense,  and  give  the  curious 
public  that  for  which  they  are  clamoring. 

In  so  doing  I  have  several  misgivings,  the 
first  of  which  is  that  I  may  not  be  able  to  quiet 
the  troubled  waters,  and  another  that  I  greatly 
detest  writing  about  myself,  and  the  few  little 
insignificant  things  that  I  have  done. 

Biographies  are  well  enough,  and  very  in- 
teresting and  indispensable,  but  autobiogra- 
phies are  quite  another  matter. 

In  the  first  place,  they  are  very  difficult  to 


INTRODUCTORY  5 

write  and  keep  the  story  in  good  taste.  To 
say  I,  and  I  continually,  from  the  beginning 
to  the  end  of  a  book,  and  not  have  the  Ego 
creep  in,  no  matter  how  carefully  the  author 
guards  against  it,  is  most  difficult. 

Then  there  is  in  all  of  us  an  aversion  to  tell- 
ing the  whole  truth  about  one's  self,  especially 
that  which  is  not  creditable. 

Few  autobiographies  are  written  with  the 
frankness  contained  in  that  of  Anthony  Trol- 
lope.  Most  authors  would  shrink  from  writ- 
ing of  themselves  as  freely  as  he  did.  Yet  this 
frankness  is  the  very  essence  of  the  autobi- 
ography, and  that  which  alone  makes  it  valu- 
able. 

So  if  this  little  volume  is  to  be  of  any  value 
to  any  one,  I  must  be  truthful  about  myself, 
even  though  it  may  hurt  my  pride. 

There  is  one  point,  however,  where  I  shall 
have  complete  control,  and  that  is  as  to  the 
length  of  the  book.  I  will  make  it  short,  and 
will  tell  the  utmost  that  I  can  about  "Hitting 
the  Dark  Trail"  in  the  shortest  possible  com- 
pass. 


6  HITTING   THE    DARK    TRAIL 

My  objects  in  writing  this  little  volume  have 
already  been  partly  disclosed,  but  there  are 
others,  prominent  among  which  is  a  desire  to 
let  the  other  half  know,  as  Jacob  Riis  would 
say,  how  my  half  (which,  in  fact,  is  only  a  very 
small  fraction)  lives;  how  a  person  without 
eyesight  fights  the  battle  of  life ;  how  he  grows 
the  beautiful  rose  of  happiness  in  the  thorny, 
sterile  soil  of  darkness.  But  in  my  case  the 
problem  is  much  more  complicated  than  that, 
for  I  have  always  been  at  the  front  in  the 
struggle  of  life,  doing  those  things  which  call 
not  only  for  the  very  keenest  eyesight,  but 
also  for  what  is  much  more  important,  minute 
observation. 

I  have  never  for  a  moment  let  the  fact  that 
I  was  in  a  way  shut  off  from  the  scenes  of 
earth  hinder  me  in  entering  most  fully  into 
their  discussion  or  enjoyment.  In  fact,  I  have 
the  very  keenest  power  of  visualizing  word  pic- 
tures, or  anything  that  calls  for  a  picture;  so 
where  other  people  ask  for  a  pencil  or  a  brush, 
with  one  stroke  of  the  imagination  I  get  the 
same  result. 


INTRODUCTORY  7 

Another  thing  which  I  hope  to  accomplish 
in  this  book  is  to  explain  fully  to  my  readers 
how  without  eyesight  I  am  able  to  write  nature 
books.  I  have  always  been  afraid  that  my  po- 
sition and  methods  in  this  matter  would  not 
be  understood,  and  that  my  books  would  be 
considered  artificial.  I  hope  to  show  that  on 
the  contrary  they  are  founded  and  grounded 
in  the  very  heart  of  Nature  herself,  and  that 
without  the  eyesight  that  I  enjoyed  for  the 
first  fourteen  years  of  my  life,  they  never  could 
have  been  written. 

Then  I  also  wish  to  give  a  helping  hand  to 
all  the  others  in  the  world  who  struggle  in 
darkness.  By  describing  my  own  struggle,  I 
wish  to  make  plain  the  struggle  of  all  those 
who  go  through  life  without  the  light  of  day. 

At  present  there  is  much  love  and  labor  lost 
on  both  sides  of  the  line,  and  I  hope  to  make 
the  road  more  direct,  and  the  way  easier  for 
both  the  sightless  and  their  friends. 

And  lastly,  dear  reader,  please  do  not  think 
of  me,  when  you  read,  as  a  crippled,  groping 
individual;  for  if  you  do,  you  will  be  greatly 


8  HITTING   THE    DARK   TRAIL 

disappointed,  should  we  ever  meet;  but  think 
of  me  as  a  brother  and  a  friend,  whom  you 
would  consider  no  different  from  yourself  if 
you  were  to  meet  him  on  the  street,  doing 
nearly  everything  either  personally  or  by 
proxy,  that  comes  to  his  hand,  keenly  inter- 
ested in  nature  and  human  nature,  and  very 
human  himself,  bubbling  over  with  a  sense  of 
humor  and  scattering  sunshine  always — the 
funny,  sunny  man,  deeply  interested  in  music, 
the  drama,  literature,  politics,  baseball,  fishing, 
and  all  forms  of  out-of-door  sports — one  who 
fights  hard,  laughs  long  and  heartily,  loves 
much,  appreciates  deeply,  and  lives  to  his  very 
finger  tips — your  brother  and  friend. 

CLARENCE  HAWSES. 


CHAPTER    I 
BLESSED   DAYLIGHT 

Childhood,  memory,  fancy  and  tradition — The  one  loved 
best  of  all — The  old  doctor's  hand  in  my  affairs — 
Born  for  express  purpose  of  seeing,  yet  blind — 
Negatives  exposed  in  daylight,  but  developed  in 
darkness — Grandmother  and  I  befriend  the  birds 
and  squirrels — Our  bird  calendar — The  boy  loved  the 
farm,  but  not  farm  work — The  boy  is  taught  hunt- 
ing, fishing,  tramping,  and  camping — Every  normal 
boy  is  something  of  a  little  savage. 

THE  dividing  line  between  memory  and 
imagination  is  so  vague  and  mysterious  that  it 
is  often  almost  impossible  to  tell  where  mem- 
ory leaves  off  and  imagination  begins.  This 
is  especially  true  of  one's  childhood.  When 
we  seek  to  get  away  back  into  the  antechamber 
of  memory  and  recall  our  very  earliest  impres- 
sions, we  are  met  with  this  doubt  at  every  turn. 
Do  I  remember  such  a  thing,  or  was  it  told  me 
by  my  elders  ?  This  is  always  the  query. 

So  I  am  inclined  to  conclude  that  childhood 
9 


10          HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

is  made  up  of  a  three-stranded  golden  cord, 
and  the  three  strands  are  memory,  fancy  and 
tradition. 

Do  you  remember,  dear  reader,  the  days  that 
were  as  long  as  an  eternity?  Days  when  from 
the  time  the  great  golden  orb  of  day  sent  its 
first  rays  into  your  chamber  window  till  it 
rested  on  the  western  hilltops  was  a  lifetime? 
Days  with  so  many  little  joys  and  sorrows 
crowded  into  them,  that  they  kept  one's  little 
heart  pounding  away  for  dear  life  all  the  time  ? 
Days  full  of  wonders  and  discoveries,  beside 
which  the  discovery  of  America  fades  into  in- 
significance. 

Do  you  remember,  in  those  deliciously  happy 
days,  how  tall  the  trees  were,  and  how  wide 
and  wonderful  the  sky  ?  How  broad  the  fields 
were,  and  what  a  sorrowful  way  the  little  head 
had  of  losing  the  points  of  compass  ?  For  they 
were  days  when  one  could  get  lost  even  in  the 
old  orchard  in  front  of  the  house. 

What  a  jungle  the  tall  grass  was  in  those 
young  days,  and  what  an  awful  sense  of  ca- 
lamity it  gave  one  just  to  lose  sight  of  one's 


BLESSED    DAYLIGHT  11 

house-top  for  even  five  seconds!  And  when 
that  blood-curdling  accident  of  getting  lost  did 
befall  us,  what  a  yell  went  up !  Then  the  dear- 
est woman  in  all  the  world  would  come  run- 
ning, herself  often  as  much  frightened  as  we, 
to  see  what  wild  beast  had  assailed  her  darling. 

Yes,  we  have  all  lived  them,  those  wonder- 
ful days  of  childhood.  All  had  fond  mothers, 
all  have  gotten  lost  in  our  own  back  dooryards, 
and  all  blown  our  bright  rainbows  with  a  straw 
and  a  dish  of  soapy  water.  If  the  bubbles  have 
all  burst  and  gone  the  way  of  our  other  dreams, 
what  does  it  matter?  They  were  bright  while 
they  lasted,  and  we  were  happy  then.  Chil- 
dren we  will  always  be  with  our  soap  bubbles 
and  rainbows,  but  only  once  does  the  perfect 
bliss  come  to  us,  and  its  memories  we  cling  to 
as  the  dearest  things  in  life. 

I  was  born  on  December  sixteenth,  1869,  in 
the  town  of  Goshen,  Mass.,  during  a  raging 
blizzard,  so  the  old  doctor  tells  me.  So  my 
advent  into  the  world  was  stormy,  and  my  life 
has  been  tempestuous  ever  since.  There  is  one 
sad  disadvantage  in  being  born  in  December, 


12         HITTING   THE    DARK    TRAIL 

and  that  is,  one  is  always  reckoned  a  year  older 
than  he  really  is.  I  am  not  oversensitive  about 
growing  old,  but  I  want  to  accomplish  as  much 
as  I  possibly  can  in  this  life ;  it  has  cost  me  so 
much  pain  to  get  thus  far,  so  I  do  not  want 
any  more  years  checked  up  against  me  than 
are  really  mine,  when  the  great  things  in  life 
are  so  hard  to  accomplish. 

As  I  look  back  upon  my  life  calmly,  re- 
flectively, and  consider  what  I  was  born  for, 
I  am  perfectly  confident  that  I  was  born  for 
seeing,  for  beholding,  for  discerning. 

Yet  here  I  am,  only  about  two-score  years 
old,  with  what  are  supposed  to  be  the  best 
working  days  ahead,  with  the  daylight  forever 
gone  from  my  eyes;  but  that  is  not  all,  for  I 
have  groped  my  way  to  success  for  the  past 
thirty  years  along  a  path  as  black  as  midnight. 

Why,  then,  say  that  I  was  born  for  seeing, 
for  the  world  of  sunlight  and  shadow,  of  scud- 
ding wind  clouds  and  fleeting  earth  shadows? 
Because  I  cannot  conceive  of  any  child  who 
could  ever  have  taken  more  pleasure  in  these 
things  than  I  did.  Through  the  eye  I  lived. 


BLESSED    DAYLIGHT  13 

Each  day  I  devoured  the  world  of  beauty  and 
loveliness,  and  laid  me  down  at  night  to  dream 
of  the  wonderful  things  that  I  had  seen  by 
day;  but  with  each  succeeding  morning  I  got 
up  with  a  new  hunger  at  my  heart,  an  insati- 
able longing  for  broad  fields  and  fertile  mead- 
ows, for  wide  skies,  and  deep  sequestered 
woodland. 

Water  too  had  a  strange  fascination  for  me ; 
even  the  little  trout  brook  tinkling  away  down 
its  pebbly  bed  under  the  green  willows,  pen- 
ciled with  many  a  dancing  sunbeam,  laughing 
and  gurgling — this  little  stream  was  my  play- 
fellow. I  ran  with  it  through  the  green 
meadow,  and  far  into  the  cool  sweet  woods. 
But  to  catch  sight  of  a  sparkling,  scintillating 
woodland  lake,  seen  through  the  restful  green 
of  the  forest,  just  as  I  did  each  time  we  drove 
to  town,  nearly  made  me  faint  with  rapture, 
while  the  look  of  it,  the  smell  of  it,  and  the 
glint  of  it  would  go  with  me  for  a  week. 

It  is  a  daring  thought,  but  I  suppose  God 
had  made  me  with  an  intense  love  of  seeing,  an 
abnormal  joy  in  the  out-of-doors,  and  eyes  that 


14.          HITTING   THE    DARK   TRAIL 

saw  everything.  Do  you  not  see  in  that  case 
how  the  pictures  would  have  gone  much  deeper 
into  the  brain  than  they  otherwise  would,  so 
when  the  great  dark  came,  they  would  be 
brighter  to  the  inward  eye,  and  their  meaning 
plainer? 

Perhaps  I  had  to  do  the  seeing  for  a  life- 
time in  those  short  thirteen  and  a  half  years — 
all  the  seeing  of  seventy  years  crowded  into 
thirteen ! 

One  of  the  bright  and  beautiful  things  in  my 
early  childhood  was  the  loving  care  of  my 
grandmother  on  my  mother's  side,  Mrs.  Josiah 
Gurney.  My  own  home  was  at  Goshen,  Mas- 
sachusetts, on  a  little  rock-ribbed,  sterile  farm 
in  the  western  part  of  the  town,  while  grand- 
father and  grandmother  Gurney  lived  in  Ash- 
field,  an  adjoining  town  made  famous  by 
Charles  Eliot  Norton  and  George  William 
Curtis,  and  their  Sanderson  academy  dinners. 
Grandfather's  farm  was  much  more  interesting 
than  my  own  home,  because  there  were  many 
things  on  the  farm  that  we  did  not  possess, 
among  others  a  large  sugar  bush.  When  I 


BLESSED   DAYLIGHT  15 

could  pack  up  and  go  to  grandmother's  for  a 
week  my  cup  of  happiness  was  full  to  over- 
flowing, while  grandmother  was  equally  happy, 
for  it  was  always  said  that  I  was  her  favorite 
of  the  grandchildren. 

It  was  through  this  great-hearted  old  lady, 
while  I  was  still  a  scrap  of  a  hoy,  not  over 
four  or  five  years  old,  that  I  first  became  ac- 
quainted with  the  birds  and  squirrels,  and  took 
my  first  lessons  in  natural  history. 

Grandmother's  heart  was  so  large  and  so 
warm,  that  she  not  only  fed  every  tramp  who 
ever  knocked  at  her  door,  but  she  also  made  a 
business  of  feeding  the  birds  and  squirrels,  so 
that  the  double  rows  of  maples  in  front  of  the 
house,  with  the  orchard  across  the  road,  were 
fairly  alive  with  birds. 

From  the  very  early  Spring,  when  the  first 
bluebird  perched  upon  the  clothes'  post  and 
greeted  us  with  his  sweet  little  "Cheerily, 
cheerily,"  we  befriended  the  birds.  We  not 
only  made  bird  houses,  and  spread  bounteous 
feed  for  our  feathered  friends  through  all  the 
season,  but  we  also  helped  them  with  their 


16          HITTING   THE   DARK   TRAIL 

nest  building,  and  kept  tabs  on  them  all 
through  the  year. 

Our  bounty  was  most  needed  by  our  little 
friends  in  the  Winter,  and  it  was  then  that  we 
got  most  pleasure  from  feeding  them.  The 
squirrels  were  so  tame  that  they  would  stand 
on  the  window  ledge  eating  corn  and  nuts, 
while  I  pressed  my  face  against  the  window- 
pane  on  the  other  side,  and  watched  breath- 
lessly. Nor  were  the  birds  less  tame  than  the 
squirrels  in  Winter,  for  our  friendly  window 
seat  often  accommodated  a  dozen  at  a  time: 
j  uncos,  buntings,  nuthatches,  chickadees, 
ruby-crested  kinglets,  pine  grosbeaks,  even 
blue  jays  and  crows,  and  best  of  all,  an  occa- 
sional shy  bob-white. 

True,  these  nature  lessons  were  very  simple, 
but  they  all  partook  of  the  quality  of  mercy 
and  goodwill  for  the  beautiful  things  that  God 
had  made. 

My  grandmother  was  also  passionately  fond 
of  flowers,  and  with  a  small  spade  I  followed 
in  her  wake,  turning  up  the  sweet-smelling 
brown  mould,  and  learning  reverence  in  watch- 


BLESSED    DAYLIGHT  17 

ing  the  green  things  grow.  At  my  own  home, 
however,  I  had  altogether  too  much  of  turning 
over  the  fresh  mould,  so  that  my  youthful  en- 
thusiasm for  the  growing  things  was  often 
dampened,  because  it  seemed  to  me  that  weeds 
grew  much  faster  and  more  luxuriantly  than 
crops. 

My  father's  health  was  poor,  owing  to  the 
fact  that  he  had  been  one  of  Uncle  Sam's  boys 
in  blue  in  '61,  and  hardtack  had  spoiled  his 
digestion.  So  when  I  was  a  mere  lad  farm 
tasks  much  beyond  my  size  and  strength  often 
fell  to  me.  I  was  early  introduced  to  the  hoe, 
the  rake,  the  ax  and  the  shovel,  all  of  which 
instruments  of  torture  I  loved  so  surpassingly 
well  that  I  took  them  down  with  reluctance 
in  the  morning,  fearing  they  might  become 
broken  in  the  course  of  the  day's  labor,  and 
hung  them  up  with  all  alacrity  at  night,  lest 
they  might  be  worn  out  with  working  over 
hours. 

The  one  consolation  in  this  arduous  farm 
toil  was  that  it  carried  me  each  day,  in  Spring, 
Summer,  Autumn,  or  Winter,  afield.  It  took 


18         HITTING   THE    DARK   TRAIL 

me  out  into  the  open,  where  there  was  life — 
life  that  ran  and  flew,  crept  and  crawled;  life 
that  was  continually  on  the  move,  and  that  kept 
one  wondering  and  guessing  all  day  long. 

So  from  the  moment  when  the  skunk  cab- 
bage first  opened  its  ugly  interesting  flower  in 
earliest  Spring,  until  the  last  fringed  gentian 
faded  by  the  brookside,  I  had  a  new  lesson  be- 
fore me  each  day,  a  new  riddle  to  read,  and  a 
new  secret  to  discover. 

Thus,  while  my  grandmother  and  the  farm 
taught  me  two  phases  of  nature,  my  father, 
who  was  an  ardent  sportsman,  taught  me  a 
third,  and  thus  rounded  out  my  knowledge  of 
field  and  forest  in  a  remarkable  degree,  for  he 
taught  me  hunting,  boating,  trapping  and  fish- 
ing, with  all  the  other  woodcraft  of  the  hunter, 
including  camping.  At  first  I  merely  went 
along  as  a  spectator,  carrying  the  game-bag 
and  watching  with  eager  eyes  the  chase;  but 
later  on  I  had  a  gun  and  became  a  real  Hia- 
watha. 

In  my  day  none  of  the  modern  school  of  na- 
ture books  had  been  written.  There  were  no 


L  _ 


J 


Wateiiiug  lor    the   farm-boy 


BLESSED    DAYLIGHT  19 

stories  that  told  of  the  chase  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  hunted,  or  of  their  intimate  life, 
so  I  realized  nothing  of  the  barbaric  side  of 
such  sport.  To  me  it  was  merely  a  wild  excit- 
ing game  that  called  for  endurance,  nerve, 
alertness  and  eternal  vigilance.  If  I  had  pos- 
sessed some  of  Thompson  Seton's  or  Charles 
G.  D.  Roberts 's  books,  I  might  have  seen  an- 
other side  of  this  sport;  but  I  had  no  such 
books,  and  with  my  training  perhaps  they 
might  not  have  deterred  me,  for  a  healthy  boy 
is  a  young  savage.  In  him  are  the  primeval 
instincts  of  the  race.  He  harks  back  more 
naturally  than  does  man  to  the  days  when  his 
ancestors  sustained  life  with  a  bow  and  arrow, 
and  with  the  fishline  and  spear. 

So  while  I  fed  the  birds  and  squirrels  in 
Winter,  helped  them  in  their  nest  building  in 
Spring,  and  was  always  deeply  interested  in 
what  they  were  doing,  and  sympathized  with 
them  in  all  their  struggles,  yet,  in  the  Autumn 
time  when  the  crops  were  in  I  often  carried 
the  game-bag  and  watched  with  savage  excite- 
ment the  day's  shooting. 


80          HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

It  was  through  this  very  sport  that  the  fields 
and  woods  that  I  so  much  loved  were  finally 
lost  to  me  forever.  But  well  it  was  that  I  had 
seen  so  much  before  the  darkness  fell.  If  I 
had  not  stored  up  myriads  of  priceless  pictures 
of  field  and  forest  under  all  the  changing  con- 
ditions of  Spring,  Summer,  Autumn,  and 
Winter,  my  life  would  have  been  beggared  in- 
deed. If  I  had  not  seen  so  much  I  never  could 
have  given  other  boys  the  many  volumes  of 
intimate  wild  life  that  have  come  from  my 
brain,  not  laboriously,  but  as  easily  as  the 
spring  bubbles  up  from  the  cliff,  or  the  arbutus 
opens  in  Springtime.  In  this  way  I  have  given 
nature  back  many-fold  more  than  I  ever  took 
from  her  in  the  days  of  my  thoughtless  youth. 


CHAPTER    H 
CLOUD    SHADOWS 

I  lose  a  dear  friend — The  old-time  New  England  parlor 
— Grandmother  goes  on  a  long  journey — A  child's 
tragedy — Facing  the  surgeon's  knife — Childish  hor- 
ror at  grim  discovery — Consolation  from  a  jacque 
rose — A  journey  on  a  couch — Carrying  a  big  stick — 
Limping  back  to  nature — Boyish  games  and  sports 
on  crutches — Fighting  the  battle  of  life  again. 

JUST  four  days  before  my  eighth  birthday 
the  first  cloud  crossed  the  roseate  heavens  of 
my  childhood,  and  that  was  the  death  of  my 
dear  grandmother,  the  large-hearted  woman 
who  had  done  so  much  for  me.  Of  course  I 
did  not  realize  the  full  significance  of  my  loss, 
or  understand  in  any  degree  the  meaning  of 
death,  but  still  it  was  a  great  blow  to  my  child- 
ish mind. 

I  remember  as  though  it  was  yesterday  sit- 
ting in  the  prim  parlor  of  the  country  farm- 
house while  the  funeral  was  in  progress.  Upon 

21 


22          HITTING   THE    DARK    TRAIL 

the  floor  was  a  bright  rag  carpet  that  I  had 
seen  grow  with  my  own  eyes  in  grandmother's 
wonderful  loom,  for  she  was  one  of  those  old- 
fashioned  women  who  could  make  almost  any- 
thing. As  I  traced  the  figure  in  the  bright 
carpet  with  my  toe,  I  remembered  that  she 
had  made  all  the  dyes  for  the  different  stripes 
herself.  I  had  helped  her  pick  the  clovertops 
for  the  bright  reds,  the  butternut  chips  for 
the  browns,  buttercups  and  dandelions  for  yel- 
low and  many  barks  and  shrubs  for  the  rest  of 
the  gay  colors.  Upon  the  walls  were  wonder- 
ful samplers  and  embroideries  from  the  same 
skillful  hands.  In  fact,  the  entire  room  was  a 
poem,  each  article  of  furniture  and  each  skill- 
ful decoration  singing  the  praises  of  grand- 
mother. 

Was  it  really  true  that  she  was  dead  ?  That 
she  would  never  again  be  able  to  watch  with 
me  from  the  window  while  the  birds  and  the 
squirrels  fed  from  our  bounty? 

I  looked  about  the  room  at  the  simple  coun- 
try folks,  all  in  their  Sunday  best  in  honor  of 
grandmother;  simple,  kind-hearted  neighbors, 


CLOUD    SHADOWS  23 

who  had  all  loved  grandmother.  Then  I  looked 
across  the  room  to  the  tear-stained  face  of  my 
mother;  the  dearest,  kindest  face  in  the  whole 
world,  and  she  sent  to  the  small  boy  in  the 
corner,  sitting  upon  an  ottoman,  a  reassuring 
look.  Then  I  looked  at  the  minister,  tall, 
grave,  and  rather  stern  it  seemed  to  me.  He 
was  saying  something  about  the  Resurrection 
and  the  Life.  I  looked  across  at  my  mother 
again,  for  there  was  a  lump  in  my  throat  about 
the  size  of  a  hen's  egg,  and  I  was  afraid  that  I 
would  choke.  I  could  not  cry,  because  none  of 
the  men  were  crying,  but  that  lump  grew  big- 
ger and  bigger. 

Now  the  minister  was  saying,  "In  my 
Father's  House  are  many  mansions."  I  could 
understand  that  better,  for  grandmother  was 
a  very  religious  woman  and  had  told  me  Bible 
stories,  and  explained  the  New  Testament  to 
me,  until  I  was  quite  a  theologian.  This  was 
what  the  minister  was  trying  to  say,  although 
he  made  bad  work  of  it.  Grandmother  was 
not  in  that  ugly  coffin  with  its  glittering  silver 
handles.  She  had  gone  away  to  one  of  those 


J84          HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

many  mansions,  where  there  were  more  beau- 
tiful flowers,  and  more  sweet-singing  birds  than 
we  had  ever  enjoyed  together. 

I  saw  them  lower  her  coffin  into  the  dark 
deep  hole  and  heard  the  melancholy  thud  of 
the  earth  upon  the  box,  when  the  minister  said 
"Dust  to  dust  and  ashes  to  ashes,"  but  it  did 
not  hurt  grandmother.  In  fact  nothing  could 
ever  hurt  her,  because  she  was  so  good  and 
kind  herself;  but  she  had  gone  away  upon  a 
very  long  journey,  and  it  would  be  a  long 
time  before  I  should  see  her  again,  and  I  was 
going  to  miss  her  every  day  of  my  life. 

The  first  personal  affliction  of  my  life,  and 
one  that  of  necessity  somewhat  subdued  my 
childish  ardor  and  turned  my  mind  towards 
more  serious  considerations,  occurred  when  I 
was  nine  years  old. 

This  was  a  misfortune,  the  consequences  of 
which  I  have  never  been  able  to  wholly  shake 
off,  although  my  philosophy  of  life  is  always 
to  make  the  very  best  of  bad  conditions. 

The  pathway  to  the  little  district  school- 
house  where  I  learned  the  three  R's  lay  for  a 


CLOUD    SHADOWS  35 

part  of  the  way  through  a  rough  cow  pasture, 
and  one  evening  while  jumping  down  from  a 
stone  wall  that  I  had  climbed  over  hundreds 
of  times  before,  and  that  I  might  have  climbed 
a  million  times  more  and  not  come  to  grief,  I 
sprained  my  ankle,  and  went  limping  sorrow- 
fully home  for  the  rest  of  the  way. 

For  a  few  days  my  ankle  did  not  seem  to 
trouble  me,  and  then  one  night  a  very  serious 
inflammation  set  in,  and  the  doctor  was  called. 
He  shook  his  head  and  looked  grave,  and  kept 
on  coming  to  see  me  week  after  week.  Instead 
of  growing  better  I  grew  steadily  worse,  and 
finally  erysipelas  developed,  and  a  surgeon  was 
sent  for.  After  he  had  examined  me  there  was 
a  long  consultation  of  the  doctors,  and  finally 
my  mother,  who  always  took  the  brunt  of  ev- 
erything, and  who  had  scarcely  left  my  bed- 
side for  weeks,  came  in  and  told  me  that  the 
doctors  were  going  to  take  out  a  bone  in  my 
foot,  and  after  that  perhaps  I  would  be  better. 
I  must  be  a  brave  boy  and  bear  the  operation 
like  a  little  man. 

I  could  do  anything  for  mother,  so  I  said  I 


26         HITTING   THE    DARK   TRAIL 

would,  and  the  two  doctors  came  in  armed  with 
knives,  saws,  and  their  coats  fairly  bristling 
with  needles  containing  what  looked  to  me  like 
shoemaker's  thread.  I  had  been  moved  to  a 
couch  beside  the  window  the  day  before,  and  I 
can  remember  just  how  the  earth  and  sky 
looked  as  I  turned  my  weary  gaze  from  these 
men,  who  seemed  more  like  grim  phantoms  in 
a  bad  dream  than  real  flesh  and  blood  men. 

It  was  July  29,  1879,  a  cool  fresh  day  more 
like  June.  The  sky  was  very  blue,  and  miles 
and  miles  away ;  and  the  clouds  on  it  were  very 
white  and  fleecy,  like  cotton  batting.  The  little 
breeze  that  blew  into  the  window  was  very 
sweet ;  there  was  clover  scent,  with  new-mown 
hay  and  other  fragrant  scents  on  its  wings 
that  I  did  not  recognize.  If  heaven  wasn't  so 
far  away,  and  I  wasn't  so  tired,  I  would  like 
to  fly  through  the  window  and  go  to  grand- 
mother, then  I  would  not  have  to  suffer  such 
endless  pain. 

Soon  they  turned  my  face  back  towards  the 
room  and  put  a  paper  cap,  in  which  was  a  nap- 
kin soaked  in  ether,  over  it.  They  could  not 


CLOUD    SHADOWS  27 

give  me  very  much  of  the  anaesthetic,  as  I  was 
very  weak,  having  been  sick  so  long,  and  they 
were  afraid  for  my  heart.  So,  midway  in  the 
operation,  and  before  they  even  suspected  what 
was  coming,  I  quickly  raised  myself  in  bed  to 
see  what  was  going  on.  As  I  did  so  an  artery 
that  the  surgeon  was  holding  slipped  from  his 
hand,  and  a  bright  jet  of  blood  shot  across  the 
room,  spattering  the  wall  paper. 

What  I  had  seen  in  that  instant  sickened  me 
to  my  heart's  core,  and  the  scar  of  it  is  on  my 
soul  to  this  very  day. 

They  had  tricked  me,  had  lied  to  me,  for  my 
left  leg  had  been  taken  off  just  below  the  knee. 

I  needed  no  urging  now  to  lie  down.  In  a 
limp  sorry  little  heap  I  slumped  back  into  my 
pillows.  They  might  do  their  worst,  now  they 
had  done  that  much;  but  if  I  could  only  get 
away  from  them  and  get  to  grandmother,  then 
I  would  not  have  to  be  a  cripple  all  through 
the  coming  years. 

Slowly  and  very  painfully,  each  day  so  many 
weary  hours  that  had  to  be  endured,  a  minute 
at  a  time,  I  crawled  back  to  health.  It  was 


28         HITTING   THE    DARK   TRAIL 

something,  however,  to  have  discovered  two  or 
three  days  after  the  amputation  that  the  doc- 
tors had  not  really  intended  to  deceive  me. 
They  had  fully  intended  to  operate  on  my 
foot,  but  had  found  it  in  such  bad  condition 
that  the  complete  amputation  was  necessary. 

Even  in  the  sick  room,  far  removed  from  the 
sweet  fields  and  the  pleasant  green  woods,  na- 
ture did  not  wholly  forsake  me,  for  a  wonder- 
ful Jacque  rose  peeped  in  at  the  window  to  see 
how  it  fared  with  the  little  sick  boy.  I  took  this 
as  a  good  omen  that  the  fields  and  woods  would 
again  be  mine,  and  often  the  thin  pale  little 
hand  stole  up  to  caress  the  great  red  rose  so 
full  of  beauty  and  splendor.  Often  I  went 
to  sleep  with  my  hand  close  to  the  rose.  But 
that  at  last,  like  most  beautiful  things,  faded, 
and  its  petals  fell  one  by  one.  Then  I  had  only 
the  memory  of  it  to  keep  me  in  the  weary  hours. 

But  the  little  breeze,  if  more  fickle,  stayed 
with  me  longer,  and  it  often  fanned  my  fevered 
brow,  and  told  me  mysterious  things  that  were 
doing  in  the  world  outside.  In  its  run  across 
the  orchard  it  could  not  help  but  imbibe  some- 


CLOUD    SHADOWS  29 

thing  of  the  out-of-doors.  So  I  learned  of  it 
that  wild  strawberries  were  ripening  in  the 
orchard,  that  the  red  clover  was  luxuriant  that 
year,  and  that  the  breeze  had  even  been  up  in 
the  pasture  land,  for  there  was  just  a  hint  of 
balsam  and  spruce  in  its  fragrant  breath. 

In  September,  for  my  sickness  had  occurred 
in  June  and  July,  my  father's  family  moved 
to  the  adjoining  town  of  Ashfield,  to  live  with 
my  grandfather  on  the  old  farm  that  I  so  much 
loved.  Grandfather  had  been  very  lonely 
since  the  death  of  grandmother,  so  this  was  a 
good  arrangement  all  around.  The  following 
year,  the  home  in  Goshen  where  I  had  been 
born  was  sold  and  passed  forever  from  our 
family.  I  made  the  journey  to  grandfather's 
place  upon  a  couch  placed  in  a  spring  wagon, 
and  this  was  the  first  time  I  had  been  out  since 
my  sickness. 

To  me  this  was  a  wonderful  trip,  but  the 
sun  seemed  uncommonly  bright  and  hurt  my 
eyes.  The  fields  were  so  green,  and  the  sounds 
of  nature  were  so  loud,  that  they  made  my  tired 
nerves  ache,  so  I  was  glad  when  we  reached 


30          HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

the  vine-covered  old  farmhouse  and  I  was  car- 
ried in  out  of  the  glare. 

A  few  weeks  later  a  pair  of  crutches  were 
procured  for  me  and  I  began  life  hobbling 
about  upon  them.  These  crutches  went  with 
me  everywhere  I  traveled  for  two  years,  and  I 
finally  exchanged  them  for  a  peg  leg,  a  make- 
shift artificial  leg,  which,  while  it  was  not  orna- 
mental, and  the  wearing  of  it  greatly  hurt  my 
pride,  yet  gave  me  the  free  use  of  my  arms, 
which  the  crutches  had  denied  me.  But 
whether  it  was  on  crutches  or  the  peg  leg,  erect, 
or  crawling  on  my  hands  and  knees  in  some 
difficult  place,  I  always  went  into  the  battle  of 
life  with  all  my  energy. 

It  was  during  those  cripple  days,  when  I 
was  so  different  from  the  other  children,  that  I 
learned  much  of  that  hard  law  of  nature,  the 
survival  of  the  fittest.  For  while  most  of  the 
children  with  whom  I  came  in  contact  were 
unusually  kind  to  me,  yet  there  was  occasion- 
ally a  boy  who  would  pick  upon  me,  making 
sport  of  my  deficiency,  or  even  jostling  me 
about.  I  soon  discovered  that  tact  and  for- 


CLOUD    SHADOWS  31 

bearance  will  carry  one  only  so  far.  One  can 
smile  and  laugh  things  off,  and  plead  and  rea- 
son up  to  a  certain  point,  but  there  are  some 
people  who  only  understand  brute  force,  so 
upon  this  class  I  gave  back  blow  for  blow.  A 
crutch  is  a  very  handy  weapon  of  defense,  and 
is  very  easily  converted  into  a  club,  and  I 
sometimes  had  to  use  it  as  such  to  keep  my 
place  in  this  fighting  world,  that  can  be  so 
kind,  and  likewise  so  brutal. 

But  the  heart  of  youth  is  naturally  strong. 
The  young  die  hard,  and  optimism  is  theirs  by 
reason  of  their  youth,  so  I  soon  went  back  to 
my  childish  games  and  sports  on  crutches, 
playing  them  all  as  hard,  if  not  quite  as  suc- 
cessfully, as  before.  There  were  some  things 
that  I  could  not  do — things  that  the  other  boys 
did — and  it  was  in  this  connection  that  I 
learned  one  of  the  hardest  lessons  of  life;  as 
Stevenson  says,  to  renounce  if  necessary  and 
not  be  embittered.  It  took  good  courage  to 
stand  on  the  coaching  line  and  yell  oneself 
hoarse  while  the  other  fellow  made  your  own 
home  run,  or  to  hand  the  other  fellow  the 


32         HITTING   THE   DARK    TRAIL 

compliment  for  the  high  jump;  but  all  those 
things  I  managed. 

I  also  learned  that  by  special  dexterity,  and 
by  using  one's  head,  mere  physical  strength 
can  be  overcome.  So  if  I  could  go  into  the  box 
and  pitch  so  cleverly  that  the  other  boys  could 
not  hit  my  balls,  I  did  not  need  to  field  the 
position.  Then  there  was  always  the  school- 
room where  my  out-of-doors  defeats,  if  there 
were  any,  could  be  avenged,  and  I  often  pun- 
ished the  brute  strength  that  had  been  too  much 
for  me  on  the  playground,  there.  The  very 
fact  that  I  was  weak  in  athletics  drove  me  to 
books,  of  which  I  was  very  fond,  so  I  read 
omnivorously  and  studied  prodigiously,  and 
thus  did  two  years'  work  for  every  year  I  at- 
tended school. 

But  it  must  not  be  imagined  that  I  forsook 
nature  and  her  ways,  for  both  upon  crutches 
and  upon  the  peg  leg  I  tramped  the  woods  in 
Spring,  Summer,  Autumn  and  Winter,  and 
became  even  more  intimate  with  the  furred  and 
feathered  folks. 

There  were  certain  kinds  of  farm  work  that 


A  suspicious  house 


CLOUD    SHADOWS  33 

I  could  no  longer  do,  so  I  was  set  to  driving 
the  teams.  The  hired  man  would  go  along  to 
do  the  loading  while  I  did  the  driving.  This 
took  me  into  the  deep  woods  in  Winter  for 
logs  and  cordwood,  and  all  through  the  sugar 
bush  in  Springtime.  I  drove  the  team  for 
plowing  in  Spring,  took  my  place  upon  the  hay 
rake  in  Summer. 

So  with  farming  and  tramping  the  fields  and 
woods  in  all  seasons,  and  attending  the  district 
school  when  it  was  in  session,  I  came  to  my 
thirteenth  year, — to  that  never-to-be-forgotten 
day  of  August  12th,  the  day  of  my  Waterloo, 
when  the  current  of  my  life  was  forever 
changed,  for  better  or  for  worse.  That  it  was 
for  worse  as  far  as  my  life's  happiness  and 
bodily  comfort  were  concerned  there  can  be  no 
question,  but  that  I  have  accomplished  infi- 
nitely more  because  of  what  befell  me  on  that 
terrible  day  I  do  not  doubt. 

That  was  the  day  that  God  plunged  me  into 
a  crucible,  and  the  scars  of  it  will  go  with  me 
to  the  grave. 


CHAPTER    III 
THE    COMING   OF   NIGHT 

My  new  gun — I  see  my  last  sunrise — A  pleasant  picture 
in  the  country  road — My  last  glimpse  of  mother — 
Hunting  dogs  eat  berries — A  premonition — Torrid 
heat  in  a  dismal  swamp — The  fatal  shot — Darkness 
and  the  great  void — Coming  back  to  torment — My 
piteous  plight — Marching  through  the  swamp  in 
darkest  night — Again  in  my  mother's  arms — The 
journey  home — Pain  within  and  gloom  without — 
Testing  my  eyesight — The  verdict — Familiar  pic- 
tures which  I  cannot  see — I  hear  nature,  but  can- 
not see  her  face — I  shut  down  my  window. 

IT  must  not  be  imagined  that  after  my  lame- 
ness I  gave  up  any  of  my  outdoor  sports  and 
recreations,  for  I  did  not.  Although  it  was 
much  harder  to  pursue  them,  yet  I  clung  to 
everything  that  I  had  possessed  before  with  the 
grip  of  a  bulldog,  and  was  enabled  to  do  about 
everything  that  I  had  done  before.  So  the 
Spring  after  my  misfortune  saw  me  back  upon 
the  trout  streams  fishing,  and  on  the  lakes 

34 


THE    COMING    OF   NIGHT  35 

boating  and  canoeing,  and  the  Autumn,  back 
in  the  woods  following  my  father  with  the 
game  bag. 

I  even  went  so  far  as  to  tie  snowshoes  upon 
my  rude  wooden  leg  and  lope  off  across  the 
country  through  the  deep  snow  following  the 
hounds.  Skating  I  managed  in  the  same  man- 
ner, so  I  rounded  out  the  life  of  a  vigorous 
boy  quite  well. 

About  the  first  of  August,  1893,  my  father 
bought  me  a  new  gun.  I  had  always  been 
allowed  to  use  his  guns,  but  this  was  my  own 
and  I  was  very  proud  of  it.  But  my  pride 
and  happiness  in  the  new  fowling  piece 
were  of  short  duration, — only  twelve  days, 
in  fact. 

Every  minute  incident  of  the  day  of  August 
12th  I  can  remember,  for  that  was  the  last  day 
that  I  ever  saw  Mother  Earth  and  the  faces 
of  those  I  loved. 

The  morning  was  hot  and  sultry,  and  I  noted 
as  I  went  to  the  barn  to  feed  the  horses  that  the 
cicadas  were  already  singing.  It  would  be  a 
hot  day  indeed,  if  they  were  any  prophets. 


36          HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

About  eight  o'clock  I  brought  the  team  around 
to  the  door.  We  had  started  a  couple  of  hours 
later  than  usual  that  morning,  as  mother  was 
going  along.  She  was  to  leave  us  at  the  wood- 
cock cover,  and  then  drive  on  to  town  several 
miles  further,  where  she  was  to  do  some  shop- 
ping. 

The  morning  drive  was  uncommonly  pleas- 
ant, for  the  road  lay  through  deep  woods  much 
of  the  way.  I  remember  how  restful  and  sat- 
isfying was  the  cool  green,  and  I  often  think 
now  what  a  happy  choice  green  was  for  the 
foundation  color  of  the  universe. 

Just  after  we  left  the  woods  we  met  a  flock 
of  sheep  which  were  being  driven  to  pasture. 
They  came  up  out  of  a  cloud  of  dust  thrown 
up  by  their  many  scurrying  feet.  It  would 
have  made  a  beautiful  painting, — the  ribbon  of 
dust-brown  road,  with  the  gray  cloud  above  it, 
and  the  white  flock  of  sheep  scurrying  out  of 
it,  while  on  their  outskirts  hovered  two  men 
and  a  faithful  collie.  When  the  flock  passed 
our  team  the  foremost  ram  bucked,  and  fol- 
lowing his  lead,  every  single  sheep  in  the  flock 


THE    COMING   OF   NIGHT  37 

bucked  when  it  passed  us, — a  fantastic  picture 
indeed. 

At  nine  o'clock  my  mother  set  us  down  at 
the  cover  and  went  on  her  way  to  town  little 
imagining  how  I  would  look  when  she  next 
saw  me. 

The  hunting  ground  was  a  fringe  of  alders 
and  willows  that  skirted  a  dimpling  little  trout 
stream,  and  I  often  stopped  as  we  hunted  down 
stream  to  snap  bits  of  bark  into  the  brook  and 
watch  for  the  bright  flash  of  the  trout  as  he 
rose  for  it,  for  really  I  was  more  interested 
in  fishing  than  in  hunting. 

The  late  blueberries  and  the  early  black- 
berries were  both  upon  the  bushes,  and  several 
times  we  stopped  to  eat.  Our  setter  also  ate 
berries  freely,  standing  on  his  hind  legs  to  do 
so.  He  did  not  use  his  paws  to  strip  them  off 
as  a  bear  would  have  done,  but  picked  them  by 
the  mouthful,  often  getting  leaves,  and  occa- 
sionally a  pricker,  at  which  he  would  make  up 
a  wry  face.  I  have  known  quite  a  few  hunting 
dogs  that  would  eat  berries. 

Presently  as  we  penetrated  farther  into  the 


38         HITTING   THE    DARK    TRAIL 

cover  the  setter  pointed,  and  a  second  later  the 
whistling  whirr  of  a  woodcock's  wings  was 
heard.  My  father  fired  at  the  bird,  which  did 
not  come  out  on  my  side  of  the  cover.  To  my 
great  astonishment  and  disgust,  at  the  report 
I  jumped  and  fell  to  trembling  violently.  I 
had  never  so  much  as  winked  an  eyelash  at  the 
report  of  a  gun  before,  but  now  it  seemed  to  fill 
me  with  an  unspeakable  dread.  There  was  a 
strange  menace  in  it  that  I  could  not  under- 
stand. 

With  considerable  difficulty  I  steadied  my 
nerve  and  went  on  deeper  and  deeper  into  the 
cover,  but  very  soon  it  changed  its  character 
and  became  an  almost  impenetrable  black  ash 
swamp.  Not  quite  the  usual  cover  for  wood- 
cock, but  we  knew  from  their  borings  that  the 
birds  were  there,  so  we  kept  on. 

Each  furlong  that  we  penetrated  into  the 
swamp  increased  the  difficulty  in  walking.  At 
last  we  reached  a  portion  of  the  swamp  where 
it  was  almost  impossible  for  me  with  my  lame- 
ness to  proceed.  The  swamp-grass  was  shoul- 
der high.  It  was  intertwined  with  jewel- weed, 


THE    COMING   OF   NIGHT  39 

iris,  cat-tails,  boneset,  clematis,  and  nettles. 
The  bottom  also  was  very  bad,  for  it  was 
spongy  and  boggy,  with  soft  places  where  it 
would  not  do  to  step.  Often  we  had  to  thread 
our  way  upon  hummocks  of  grass  called  nig- 
gerheads. 

To  add  to  our  difficulties  the  August  sun 
beat  down  upon  us  as  I  have  never  felt  it  be- 
fore or  since.  We  were  tormented  by  an  in- 
satiable thirst,  and  the  water  all  looked  swampy 
and  dark,  and  we  did  not  dare  drink  it.  The 
extreme  heat  of  midsummer  had  turned  the 
foliage  in  this  portion  of  the  swamp  a  sickly 
yellow  green,  which  color  seemed  to  nauseate 
me.  The  nervousness  that  I  had  noted  when 
the  first  gun  was  fired  a  mile  back  seemed  to 
increase  with  each  passing  minute.  I  would 
jump  if  a  twig  snapped,  like  an  old  woman 
who  thinks  she  hears  burglars. 

I  laid  it  all  to  the  heat,  however,  but  finally 
told  my  father  that  I  must  sit  down  to  rest  for 
a  few  minutes,  as  the  combination  of  heat  and 
bad  traveling  was  too  much  for  me.  He  said, 
"All  right,"  and  pointed  to  a  tree  near  by, 


40          HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

where  it  was  shady  and  more  open  than  the  rest 
of  the  swamp,  so  I  went  and  sat  down,  while 
he  began  working  a  cover  near  by  with  the  dog. 

I  had  been  sitting  under  the  tree  with  my 
gun  across  my  knee,  watching  my  father's 
brown  hunting  cap,  which  occasionally  showed 
for  a  moment  where  the  alder  cover  was  not  so 
dense,  and  listening  to  the  low  tinkle  of  the 
little  bell  on  the  setter  for  perhaps  five  min- 
utes, when  the  sharp  quick  whir  of  a  wood- 
cock's wings  made  me  jump  nearly  out  of  my 
skin.  I  looked  in  the  direction  of  the  cover 
and  saw  a  woodcock  skimming  along  over  some 
low  alder  bushes  between  me  and  the  thicker 
cover  where  my  father  was. 

I  did  not  shoot,  as  to  have  done  so  would 
have  sent  a  charge  of  shot  directly  into  the 
cover  where  father  was.  I  do  not  know  that 
I  could  have  shot,  even  if  this  had  not  been  so, 
for  I  seemed  to  be  in  the  grip  of  some  strange 
spell;  a  sorcery  was  upon  me  that  I  could  not 
shake  off. 

Then  came  the  report  of  my  father's  gun, 
which,  as  the  swamp  was  overarched  with  tall 


THE    COMING    OF    NIGHT  41 

black  ashes  above  the  alders,  detonated 
strangely.  A  blow  as  from  a  blast  of  wind 
suddenly  striking  upon  me  caused  me  to  sink 
backwards  against  the  tree  at  my  back,  while 
a  score  of  awls,  each  red  hot,  it  seemed  to  me 
from  their  burning,  stuck  into  my  hands,  face 
and  breast. 

But  more  than  the  torment  of  pain  was  the 
fearful  fact  that  in  a  flash  the  sun  had  gone 
dark,  and  a  deadly  sickness  like  death 
gripped  me. 

I  put  my  hand  up  to  my  chin  where  some 
fluid  was  trickling  down  freely,  and  noted  that 
the  tiny  stream  was  warm;  blood  warm,  and 
then  I  knew  what  had  happened. 

I  had  just  strength  enough  left  to  cry  out  to 
my  father  that  he  had  shot  me,  and  then  I  col- 
lapsed and  fell  back  against  the  tree  too  faint 
to  speak  or  move,  although  perfectly  con- 
scious. 

I  could  hear  my  father  calling  to  me,  al- 
though he  seemed  miles  away,  while  he  was 
sopping  brook  water  in  my  face  with  his  hand- 
kerchief, and  trying  to  lift  me  up. 


42          HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

I  did  not  want  to  be  lifted  up,  I  did  not  want 
to  be  brought  back  to  full  consciousness,  but 
preferred  to  sink  down  into  total  oblivion  and 
rest.  I  was  so  tired  and  sick,  and  I  knew  it 
was  going  to  hurt  so  when  I  did  come  back  to 
myself. 

Presently  I  could  hear  the  crows  calling 
away  in  the  deep  woods,  but  it  was  the  tiniest 
sound  I  have  ever  heard;  no  louder  than  the 
humming  of  a  mosquito,  but  still  I  knew  it  for 
crows. 

Then  the  burning  of  the  score  of  awls  that 
had  been  boring  into  me  ever  since  I  sank  back 
against  the  tree  redoubled,  the  roaring  in  my 
ears  ceased,  and  I  could  hear  more  plainly, 
and  by  degrees  I  came  round.  Came  back  to 
earth,  and  the  horror  that  awaited  me. 

This  was  the  problem  that  I  had  to  face: 
I  was  at  the  heart  of  a  black  ash  swamp,  two 
miles  from  the  highway,  wounded  in  thirty 
places.  I  could  stand  the  shot  that  had  hit  me 
in  the  body  and  limbs,  although  they  had 
broken  two  of  my  fingers;  but  the  thing  that 
staggered  me  and  made  me  sorry  for  the  time 


THE    COMING   OF   NIGHT  43 

that  I  had  not  lost  my  life  altogether,  was  the 
fact  that  three  number-ten  bird-shot  were 
sticking  in  my  right  eye,  and  one  in  my  left, 
and  that  as  far  as  I  knew  I  was  totally  blind. 

I  have  often  thought  since  what  a  queer 
freak  of  fortune  it  was  that  wounded  me  in 
the  eyes.  If  my  head  had  been  turned  just  a 
trifle,  if  the  shot  had  scattered  just  a  little  dif- 
ferently! If  that  shot  were  to  be  fired  over  a 
dozen  times,  it  probably  would  not  have  put 
out  both  eyes  another  time.  I  am  not  a  fatal- 
ist, I  think,  but  it  must  have  been  ordained  that 
those  shot  should  find  my  eyes. 

For  half  an  hour  I  lay  upon  my  back  while 
my  father  continued  to  sop  cold  water  in  my 
face,  and  although  I  had  bled  a  great  deal,  yet 
at  the  end  of  that  time  my  strength  came  back 
to  me  sufficiently  to  permit  of  my  standing. 
Then  we  began  that  horrible  march  of  two 
miles  under  the  blazing  August  sun,  through 
that  dense  tangle  of  swamp  growth. 

I  leaned  upon  my  father's  arm,  and  he 
guided  me  as  best  he  could,  but  even  then  it 
was  heartbreaking  work.  Every  few  rods  I 


44         HITTING   THE    DARK   TRAIL 

had  to  lie  down,  while  he  went  for  brook  water. 
With  this  extreme  exertion  my  hands,  face, 
and  breast  began  to  swell,  and  fever  began  to 
quicken  my  pulse  and  make  me  light-headed. 

Again  and  again  my  father  had  to  implore 
me,  telling  me  that  I  would  surely  die  if  I  did 
not  make  an  effort  to  reach  the  road.  Again 
and  again  I  rose  and  stumbled  on  when  it 
seemed  to  me  that  I  could  never  rise  again. 
But  our  longest  trials  have  an  end,  if  we  live 
through  them,  and  if  we  do  not  it  does  not  mat- 
ter. At  last,  panting  and  nearly  delirious  with 
pain,  I  fell  exhausted  by  the  roadside  at  the 
end  of  the  two-mile  tramp. 

A  few  minutes  later  my  dear  mother  drove 
down  the  road,  returning  from  town.  She 
came  to  me,  and  held  me  in  her  arms,  with  that 
sympathy  which  only  a  mother  can  give,  when 
the  great  misfortunes  of  life  overtake  us.  I 
lay  with  my  head  in  her  lap  for  half  an  hour 
while  she  bathed  my  swollen,  bleeding  face 
with  brook  water;  and  finally,  helped  by  my 
father,  I  climbed  into  the  wagon,  and  we  began 
the  long,  tedious  journey  home. 


THE    COMING    OF    NIGHT  45 

I  lay  upon  the  back  seat  of  the  wagon,  with 
my  head  in  my  mother's  lap,  sustained  and 
comforted  by  her,  while  the  wagon  jolted  over 
the  five  miles  of  rough  road  that  lay  between 
the  scene  of  the  accident  and  home.  I  was 
suffering  badly  from  the  shock,  and  shook  as 
though  I  had  a  chill,  and  vomited  freely.  But 
worst  of  all  was  the  pain,  which  was  excruci- 
ating. 

Every  one  of  the  thirty  pellets  sticking  in 
my  flesh  burned  as  though  it  had  been  molten 
lead,  and  each  wound  began  swelling  freely, 
until  when  I  reached  home  my  best  friend 
would  not  have  known  me. 

My  sister  Alice,  eleven  years,  and  my  two 
brothers  stood  tearfully  each  side  of  the  door- 
way while  I  was  led  into  the  house,  where  I 
was  at  once  put  to  bed. 

The  doctor  was  hastily  sent  for,  but  he  was 
away  upon  a  pleasure  outing  for  the  day,  and 
there  was  no  other  doctor  to  be  had  in  the 
place,  so  it  was  evening  before  medical  as- 
sistance came  to  me. 

Of  course  the  chief  anxiety  was  over  my 


46         HITTING   THE    DARK   TRAIL 

eyesight.  The  other  wounds  I  would  get  over 
all  right,  if  blood  poisoning  did  not  set  in.  But 
as  to  my  eyes,  the  country  doctors  could  not 
say.  One  day  they  talked  hopefully  and  the 
next  discouragingly,  but  I  imagine  that  they 
feared  the  worst  all  the  time.  With  three  shot 
in  one  eye  and  one  in  the  other  it  was  impos- 
sible to  keep  down  the  inflammation,  although 
I  had  ice  water  cloths  on  my  eyes,  which  were 
changed  every  fifteen  minutes  for  six  weeks' 
time.  The  pain  was  fearful,  a  peculiar,  zig- 
zagging pain  that  was  like  nothing  I  have  ever 
experienced  since  and  never  want  to  again. 

At  last  I  was  allowed  to  come  forth  from  my 
bedroom,  but  with  my  eyes  well  protected  by 
a  shade.  My  eyes  wept  and  smarted  continu- 
ally, but  the  pain  was  not  quite  so  intense. 

I  then  had  perhaps  a  fifth  or  a  tenth  of  my 
normal  vision.  I  could  see  for  perhaps  fifty 
feet  in  every  direction,  but  through  a  thick 
haze,  as  though  the  whole  earth  had  been  en- 
compassed by  a  very  dense  fog. 

This  pitiful  complement  of  sight  was  a  great 
comfort  to  me,  until  I  discovered  after  a  day 


THE    COMING   OF   NIGHT  47 

or  two  that  this  sight  was  rapidly  leaving  me. 
Each  morning  when  I  awoke  the  fog- wall 
about  me  had  come  in  a  few  feet  nearer,  or  it 
was  a  little  more  dense.  Anxiously  I  would 
test  my  sight  each  day,  hoping  that  I  was  mis- 
taken ;  but  there  was  no  mistake  about  it. 

Every  morning  when  I  arose,  I  would  first 
go  to  the  head  of  the  stairs  and  test  my  waning 
vision  on  a  colored  curtain  that  hung  at  a  win- 
dow in  the  hall  below.  So  gradually,  so  surely, 
so  relentlessly  did  my  vision  finally  fade,  that 
I  was  obliged  to  descend  one  stair  each  day  to 
see  the  curtain  in  the  hall.  Finally  I  counted 
the  stairs  and  calculated  that  two  weeks  from 
that  day  I  should  be  totally  blind,  and  this  was 
just  what  came  to  me. 

One  morning  late  in  September  I  awoke 
early  and  threw  open  my  window  to  get  a 
breath  of  the  out-of-doors  air. 

It  seemed  to  me  now  that  I  was  always 
awake,  for  sleep  would  not  come  to  me  as  in 
the  old  days.  In  fact  I  have  never  slept  as 
well  since  losing  my  sight.  It  is  nature's  way, 
that  when  the  sun  disappears  and  darkness 


48          HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

falls  over  the  land,  all  the  tired  things  should 
close  their  eyes  in  sleep.  But  if  there  is  no 
day,  and  no  change  from  day  to  night,  there 
cannot  be  that  restful  change  which  is  the 
secret  of  deep  sweet  sleep. 

It  must  have  been  six  or  half  past,  as  I  could 
just  feel  the  feeble  rays  of  the  morning  sun 
upon  my  face.  Old  Sol  must  be  peeping  over 
the  eastern  hilltops  above  the  sugar  bush.  How 
many  times  I  had  watched  his  great  red  disk 
paint  these  same  hilltops  crimson!  In  the  air 
was  the  sad  sweet  smell  of  dying  leaves.  I 
knew  the  maples  along  the  roadside  leading  to 
the  house  must  be  a  blaze  of  glory,  for  they 
had  always  been  so  at  this  time  of  year,  and 
nature  would  not  change  her  course  though  all 
the  world  went  blind. 

I  heard  a  scurrying  of  little  feet,  and  listened 
intently.  It  was  a  red  squirrel  scratching  down 
the  old  butternut  tree.  I  knew  as  well  as  I 
wanted  to  that  he  had  a  nut  in  his  mouth,  and 
I  also  knew  where  he  was  going  with  it.  Sure 
enough,  presently  he  went  scurrying  through 
the  leaves  at  the  foot  of  the  tree,  and  then  I 


THE    COMING    OF   NIGHT  49 

heard  him  jump  upon  the  wall.  Now  he  was 
off  for  the  twenty-rod  run  to  the  sugarhouse. 
I  knew  the  identical  bucket  where  that  nut 
would  be  stored.  He  had  stored  them  in  the 
same  place  for  three  years,  and  I  had  placed 
the  bucket  in  the  same  spot  when  I  had  washed 
it  in  the  Spring  that  his  housekeeping  might 
not  be  disturbed. 

In  a  distant  cornfield  I  could  hear  the  jays 
and  the  crows  calling.  Truly  they  were  having 
a  goodly  feast.  I  had  driven  the  team  to  plow 
that  field,  and  had  helped  with  the  planting. 
I  knew  just  how  it  looked  now  with  the  hun- 
dreds of  tent-like  shocks  of  corn,  with  golden 
pumpkins  gleaming  in  between.  The  Indian 
village  of  harvest-time,  that  was  what  I  had 
always  called  it. 

As  the  sun  warmed  up,  from  near  and  far 
came  the  stir  of  life.  My  friends  and  compan- 
ions of  the  old  days  were  all  getting  busy.  The 
cattle  were  lowing  in  the  barnyard,  and  the 
rooster  was  flapping  his  wings  on  the  barpost 
and  making  a  great  noise.  I  liked  to  hear  his 
lusty  crowing.  He  seemed  so  full  of  life  and 


50          HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

well  satisfied  with  the  way  things  were  going. 
Chickens  and  ducks  were  yelping  and  quack- 
ing, and  all  the  songbirds  that  were  left  were 
getting  their  breakfast. 

There  would  come  the  sudden  flutter  of  swift 
little  wings,  and  I  would  try  to  guess  what  the 
bird  was  and  what  it  was  doing.  There  was  a 
robin  pulling  worms  in  the  roadway.  I  had 
heard  him  quit  when  he  flew  away.  A  bluebird 
was  uttering  his  forlorn  little  song  that  had 
sounded  so  blithe  in  the  Spring  from  the  top 
of  a  maple.  I  could  hear  a  lot  of  them  calling 
in  the  orchard  and  I  knew  that  they  were  flock- 
ing, getting  ready  for  their  long  flight.  There 
came  the  sharp  snip  of  a  woodpecker.  I  could 
imagine  him  running  up  the  bark  of  the  tree 
prospecting  for  worms.  All  the  world  was 
busy,  all  the  world  was  glad,  but  myself. 

From  about  my  head  came  the  tantalizing 
fragrance  of  ripe  grapes.  I  put  up  my  hand 
and  touched  a  cluster.  How  fragrant  it  was, 
with  the  amber  juices  stored  up  under  its  pur- 
ple skin! 

All  the  picture  before  me  I  knew  intimately. 


THE    COMING    OF    NIGHT  51 

The  broad  mowings  now  freshly  green  with 
rowen,  the  cornfield  beyond  with  its  tented 
acres  and  golden  pumpkins,  the  sugarbush 
still  further  on,  which  now  must  be  a  blaze  of 
scarlet  and  crimson,  of  yellow  and  saffron, 
and  all  the  other  varied  tints  of  Autumn;  and 
above  all  the  jagged  ridge  of  pines  and  spruces 
that  fringed  the  distant  hilltops.  I  could  see 
these  same  hilltops  in  imagination  shot  through 
by  the  morning  sunbeams  which  were  now 
quite  warm. 

My  world  wras  all  there.  I  could  smell  and 
feel  it,  but  could  not  see  it,  so  far  as  the  eye 
was  concerned.  And  what  did  beautiful  scenes 
matter  if  you  could  not  see  them  ?  I  might  as 
well  be  on  the  planet  Mars.  I  was  out  of  the 
world,  out  of  life,  out  of  its  labors  and  its  en- 
joyments, out  of  everything  that  mattered. 

I  reached  up  with  my  hand  and  touched  my 
window  casement,  and  then  out  and  touched 
the  roof.  Out  there  was  a  world  as  wide  as 
vision,  of  beautiful  hills  and  valleys,  of  fields 
and  woods,  the  wonderful  pageant  of  nature. 
But  my  world,  the  world  of  touch,  to  which  I 


52          HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

now  belonged,  was  only  three  or  four  dark 
feet  in  every  direction.  My  radius  of  action 
would  henceforth  be  the  length  of  my  arm. 
How  pitifully  my  world  had  shrunk !  For  the 
beautiful  world  out  there,  I  had  been  given  a 
black  sphere  about  the  size  of  a  haycock. 

I  knew  quite  enough  of  what  was  before  me. 
I  did  not  need  to  see  or  understand  more,  so  I 
shut  down  the  window  and  went  back  to  my 
sleepless  pillow,  with  the  heaviest  heart  I  have 
ever  known. 


CHAPTER    IV 
SEARCHING   FOR   LIGHT 

Once  more  back  in  the  world — A  stranger  amid  famil- 
iar scenes — Recognizing  flowers  and  plants  by  a 
new  sense — The  seemingly  indispensable  sense — 
Hearing  instead  of  seeing — Empty-handed  in  a 
world  of  treasures — Robbing  the  eyes  of  light  dark- 
ens the  soul — Labor  is  the  solace  of  solitude — 
Mother  helps  me  to  while  away  the  heavy  hours — 
Searching  for  light — A  message  from  grandmother 
— Slipping  back  into  darkness — A  journey  to  the 
city — The  shock  of  a  passing  express  train — Losing 
the  sense  of  direction — Under  the  oculist's  knife — 
Two  years  of  torment — The  final  verdict. 

I  SHALL  never  forget  the  first  day  that  I 
went  forth  into  the  glad  old  world,  the  world 
of  sight  and  sound,  of  scent  and  sentiment, 
without  eyesight  to  behold  its  wonders  and 
mysteries.  My  little  sister,  Alice,  three  years 
younger  than  myself,  was  my  guide.  She  was 
nearly  heartbroken  at  the  misfortune  that  had 
overtaken  her  brother,  and  her  solicitude  and 
care  for  me  were  very  comforting.  She  had 

53 


54          HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

always  been  my  playmate  and  companion,  en- 
tering into  my  boyish  sports  with  more  than  a 
girl's  usual  enthusiasm;  but  now  everything 
was  changed.  There  could  be  no  more  romps 
as  far  as  I  was  concerned.  Now  we  must  go 
circumspectly,  using  care  at  the  rough  places. 

It  seemed  so  strange  to  be  out  in  the  open 
fields,  with  the  scenes  that  I  knew  so  well  all 
about  me,  and  yet  so  far  removed.  When  a 
crow  flew  over,  cawing  as  he  went,  I  turned 
my  face  up  instinctively.  I  knew  that  the  dig- 
nified black  rascal  was  there,  winging  his  way 
leisurely  through  the  sky  above  me,  yet  it  was 
a  mind  picture  that  I  saw,  and  not  a  vital  new 
sight  experience. 

When  we  trod  upon  some  familiar  plant,  I 
often  recognized  it  by  the  scent.  Perhaps  it 
was  a  perfume,  or  maybe  a  pungent  aroma, 
yet  the  restful  green  of  the  fronds  with  their 
delicate  traceries  were  not  now  of  my  world. 
Occasionally  I  would  get  down  upon  my  knees 
and  try  to  readjust  myself  to  the  new  condition, 
try  to  get  in  touch  with  the  old  plant  friend 
by  feeling ;  but  the  attempt  was  usually  unsat- 


SEARCHING   FOR    LIGHT  55 

isfactory,  although  I  have  since  restored  the 
friendship  between  myself  and  plants  and  flow- 
ers, until  things  are  nearly  upon  the  old  basis. 

My  friend,  Helen  Keller,  whom  I  consider 
one  of  the  bravest  women  in  the  world,  in  writ- 
ing of  blindness,  and  of  sight  versus  touch, 
places  the  hand  above  the  eye  in  their  order  of 
usefulness.  But  I  think  there  is  a  phase  of 
this  subject  that,  with  all  her  keen  intuitions, 
Miss  Keller  has  never  been  able  to  grasp ;  and 
it  is  no  wonder,  having  never  seen,  that  she 
does  not  understand  the  surpassing  wonder 
and  mystery,  and  eternal  usefulness,  of  sight. 

From  the  first  moment  you  open  your  eyes 
in  the  morning,  until  heavy  eyelids  close  over 
them  at  night,  these  wonderful  organs  are  in 
constant  use.  They  are  observing  and  analyz- 
ing the  things  all  about  you,  for  every  minute 
of  that  time,  whether  you  are  conscious  of  it  or 
not.  There  is  almost  no  motion  you  make  that 
is  not  ordered  by  sight. 

The  ears  only  work  when  there  is  sound  for 
them  to  perceive.  The  sense  of  touch  is  only 
in  action  when  there  is  something  to  feel,  the 


56          HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

sense  of  smell  when  there  is  something  to 
smell,  but  sight  is  omnipresent,  and  working 
continually.  Sight  is  the  sense  through  which 
we  gain  nine-tenths  of  our  knowledge,  while 
as  for  the  out-of-doors  world  of  fields  and 
woods,  of  nature  and  her  ways,  sight  is  about 
all  there  is  to  it. 

Was  it  any  wonder  that,  as  I  stumbled 
blindly  along  the  familiar  paths  where  I  had 
been  wont  to  run,  hearing  familiar  sounds  all 
about  me,  where  these  sounds  had  always  been 
associated  with  wonderful  scenes,  I  felt  lost 
and  bewildered?  That  I  felt  the  world  had 
suddenly  slipped  from  my  grasp  ?  That  I  was 
in  it,  but  not  of  it? 

I  was  a  stranger  in  a  strange  land,  yet  the 
land  was  not  strange  to  me,  either.  It  was  my 
native  land.  I  had  been  born  and  bred  a  child 
of  Nature.  There  was  no  sound  or  scent  of 
hers,  no  song,  or  sound  of  woe,  that  I  did  not 
know.  Yet  in  a  few  awful  weeks,  the  grasp 
and  the  mastery  of  these  things  had  suddenly 
slipped  from  me,  leaving  me  empty-handed 
and  empty-hearted,  save  for  a  numbing  ache 


SEARCHING    FOR    LIGHT  57 

that  gripped  me  by  day  and  night,  even  mak- 
ing my  dreams  hideous. 

So  I  contented  myself  upon  that  first  walk 
with  occasionally  stopping  to  feel  a  fern  or  a 
flower,  and  listening  to  the  familiar  sounds 
from  that  lost  world  that  I  had  known  but 
yesterday,  but  to-day  was  a  stranger  to  me. 

With  the  loss  of  light,  I  believe  there  is  a 
corresponding  loss  of  cheer  and  cheerfulness, 
which  has  nothing  to  do  with  blindness.  Sun- 
beams are  the  very  quintessence  of  cheer.  A 
smile  is  a  human  sunbeam,  and  a  frown  is  a 
human  shadow.  So  with  the  loss  of  sunlight 
and  the  coming  of  perpetual  gloom  I  experi- 
enced a  heaviness  of  despair  that  was  numbing 
and  chilling,  and  weighed  me  down  like  lead. 

It  was  something  that  one  had  to  fight  day 
and  night,  sleeping  or  waking,  to  keep  back 
these  demons  of  the  dark,  these  imps,  tireless, 
persistent,  omnipresent,  that  swarmed  about 
one  like  mosquitoes  over  an  old  swamp,  always 
singing  their  despair  into  one's  ears,  no  matter 
how  hard  one  tried  to  shut  them  out. 

So  the  first  almost  insurmountable  obstacle 


58          HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

that  I  had  to  overcome  was  that  of  regaining 
my  spiritual  light,  for  it  seemed  to  me  that, 
with  the  blinding  of  my  eyes,  my  soul  had  also 
been  blinded.  My  mirth  had  been  taken  from 
me ;  the  right  to  laugh,  the  privilege  of  smiling, 
and  the  right  to  be  glad.  I  presume  that  to  a 
person  who  has  never  seen,  this  struggle,  this 
fight  for  mental  and  spiritual  light  does  not 
come.  I  felt  sure  that  after  a  time  I  could 
get  about  slowly,  and  could  do  a  few  things, 
but  in  the  meantime  could  I  keep  darkness  and 
despair  from  smothering  me  ? 

Next  to  the  struggle  for  light,  for  cheerful- 
ness, and  for  happiness,  which  is  essential  to 
us  all  if  we  would  really  live,  was  the  struggle 
for  something  to  do ;  for  no  one  can  be  happy 
without  a  life's  work.  After  having  struggled 
and  fought  every  inch  of  the  way  to  that  meas- 
ure of  success  which  I  have  attained,  I  can 
conceive  of  no  more  wretched  mortals  than  the 
idle,  indolent  rich,  without  an  aim  in  life,  and 
without  a  fight,  with  nothing  to  accomplish, 
nothing  to  attain  to. 

So  to  patch  up  the  broken  threads  of  life 


SEARCHING    FOR    LIGHT  59 

and  get  back  into  the  struggle  was  my  first 
thought.  I  went  to  sawing  wood  and  husking 
corn  for  a  starter,  but  these  simple  tasks  were 
not  satisfying.  They  called  for  no  ingenuity, 
no  brains,  no  enthusiasm.  I  might  spend  a 
lifetime  sawing  wood,  but  it  would  still  be  saw- 
ing wood.  I  must  do  something  else,  so  I  be- 
gan learning  to  play  the  organ,  my  teacher 
being  my  dear  mother,  who  neglected  her  work 
and  invented  all  sorts  of  new  devices  to  help 
and  encourage  me.  My  ear  and  musical  taste 
were  not  of  the  best,  but  I  had  a  brand  of 
patience  which  could  not  be  beaten,  so  I  be- 
gan laboriously,  assisted  by  mother's  teaching, 
to  learn  gospel  hymns. 

Desperately  I  sought,  at  the  sawbuck  and 
the  corncrib,  and  at  the  old  organ,  to  keep  off 
the  overwhelming  darkness  that  surrounded 
me. 

I  laughed  and  smiled  when  my  heart  was 
heavy  as  lead,  without  a  shred  of  joy  in  it.  I 
racked  my  brain  for  all  the  funny  stories  I  had 
ever  read  or  heard,  and  told  them  to  my  folks 
and  to  kind  neighbors  who  called  to  see  me, 


60          HITTING   THE    DARK   TRAIL 

but  it  was  all  in  vain.  The  last  spark  of  real 
happiness  had  gone  out  of  me.  My  life  was 
empty,  hollow,  a  hideous  mockery  of  what  it 
had  been. 

All  this  misery  I  hid  from  my  mother  as 
best  I  could,  for  I  knew  it  cut  her  to  the  quick 
to  see  me  wretched.  But  what  boy  can  hide 
his  hurts  away  from  his  mother?  That  mother 
love  would  find  them  out,  no  matter  how  clev- 
erly they  were  hidden.  Often  my  dear  mother 
would  steal  up  to  my  bedroom  long  after  the 
rest  of  the  family  were  asleep,  and  put  her 
loving  arms  about  me  and  fold  me  to  her  heart. 
I  would  brush  away  my  tears  when  I  heard  her 
coming,  and  try  not  to  let  her  know  I  had  been 
crying. 

Finally  the  dark  despair  about  me  got  so 
deep  and  overwhelming  that  I  gave  up  the 
organ  and  sawing  wood,  and  would  sit  all  day 
long  in  a  corner  with  my  head  in  my  hands, 
trying  to  think  it  out,  searching  for  light.  Now 
for  the  first  time  the  full  extent  of  my  loss  was 
apparent  to  me.  I  saw  that  my  life  was  prob- 
ably hopelessly  wrecked,  and  like  a  drowning 


SEARCHING    FOR    LIGHT  61 

person  I  was  looking  for  some  straw  to 
cling  to. 

It  was  just  about  this  time  that  a  very  pe- 
culiar experience  came  to  me,  something  that 
was  the  nearest  to  the  supernatural  of  any- 
thing I  have  ever  experienced.  I  was  sitting 
at  the  organ  one  evening  in  the  Winter  twi- 
light, leaning  forward  with  my  head  in  my 
hand,  too  weary  and  heartsick  to  play.  It  was 
snowing  outside,  for  I  could  hear  the  slight 
rattle  of  sleet  against  the  windowpane.  Inside 
the  fire  was  crackling  merrily ;  a  cheerful  sound, 
but  it  held  no  mirth  for  me.  I  was  wondering 
how  long  I  could  go  on  aching,  and  aching, 
without  any  joy  in  my  heart.  Why  had  it  all 
happened,  and  after  all  was  it  not  a  horrible 
dream,  from  which  I  would  presently  awake 
and  find  the  sun  shining  brightly,  and  the  birds 
singing?  Everything  seemed  like  a  nightmare 
in  those  days,  for  light  alone  gives  reality  to 
life.  I  had  pinched  my  arms  so  often  to  find 
out  if  I  was  awake,  that  they  were  sore  and 
probably  black  and  blue. 

Presently,  as  I  sat  with  bowed  head,  I  felt 


62          HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

a  wonderful  hallowed  something  stealing  down 
upon  me.  It  was  like  a  benediction,  as  though 
a  great  wave  of  joy,  happiness  and  peace  had 
suddenly  enfolded  me.  There  was  something 
familiar  about  it  all,  too,  and  yet  it  was  more 
wonderful  than  anything  I  had  ever  known 
before.  My  heart  became  light  and  sang  for 
joy.  I  lifted  up  my  head  and  threw  back  my 
shoulders,  and  felt  equal  to  anything. 

All  the  time  I  was  reaching  out  for  some- 
thing or  some  one  whom  I  knew  as  well  as  my 
own  mother,  and  who  was  very  dear  to  me. 
Then  a  great  thought  came  to  me,  one  that  I 
have  cherished  ever  since.  It  was  my  grand- 
mother who  stood  over  me!  She  had  seen  my 
great  distress  and  had  come  down  from  heaven 
to  comfort  me.  I  felt  as  sure  of  it  as  I  would 
had  it  been  my  own  mother  who  had  come  into 
the  room  and  put  her  hand  upon  my  head.  It 
was  certainly  grandmother,  who  had  loved  me 
so  deeply.  My  silent  cry  for  help  had  reached 
her,  and  she  had  come  swiftly  and  surely  to 
my  aid. 

I  rose  from  the  organ  a  new  being,  and  went 


SEARCHING   FOR   LIGHT  63 

back  to  life  with  a  zest.  Mother  and  the  rest 
of  my  family  were  astonished  at  my  sudden 
resilience,  and  did  not  know  what  had  hap- 
pened to  me. 

I  felt  instinctively  that  my  help  had  been 
from  heaven,  so  I  turned  to  reading  the  Bible, 
my  grandfather  acting  as  reader.  For  a  few 
months,  by  means  of  this  new-found  joy,  and 
by  constantly  refreshing  myself  with  the  most 
hopeful  Bible  stories  and  promises,  I  sustained 
myself.  But  the  heart  of  youth  wants  very 
present  joys.  It  is  not  enough  for  a  child  to 
think  he  may  find  heaven  at  some  distant  time. 
He  wants  heaven  now,  or  rather  he  wants 
earth, — earth  and  the  fullness  thereof, — the 
joys  of  living  and  loving,  of  striving  and  ac- 
complishing. 

So,  while  this  spiritual  help  upheld  me  for  a 
while,  yet  it  was  not  for  long,  for  soon  the  old 
aches  were  knocking  at  my  heart,  and  soon  the 
demons  of  darkness  again  assailed  me  from 
every  side.  Again  I  was  plunged  into  a  gloom 
darker  than  the  darkness  of  Egypt. 

About  this  time,  when  I  had  reached  the  very 


64          HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

depths  of  despair,  the  country  doctor  who  had 
attended  me  when  I  was  shot  called  to  see  me, 
and  told  my  parents  that  he  thought  I  ought 
to  be  taken  to  the  city  to  consult  with  some 
great  oculist  concerning  my  eyes.  Something 
might  possibly  be  done  to  regain  a  little  of 
my  vision.  At  this  suggestion  my  spirits  rose 
again,  and  from  then  on  for  the  next  two  years 
I  alternated  between  hope  and  despair,  accord- 
ing to  how  the  doctors  happened  to  talk  at  the 
time. 

This  was  in  the  Winter,  and  in  the  Spring 
following  I  got  ready  and  went  with  my 
mother,  who  always  took  all  the  hard  things  on 
herself,  to  Boston  to  the  eye-and-ear  infirmary, 
to  see  what  the  doctors  could  do.  I  had  alwrays 
been  a  quiet  country  lad,  and  had  never  trav- 
eled. In  fact,  I  had  never  ridden  on  the  steam 
cars,  so  it  was  a  great  change  to  me  to  be 
whirled  away  to  the  city. 

At  this  time  I  was  in  a  very  nervous  state, 
not  having  gotten  adjusted  to  the  new  condi- 
tions. All  sounds  seemed  much  louder  than 
they  had  formerly  been.  The  auditory  nerves 


SEARCHING   FOR    LIGHT  65 

were  keyed  to  a  high  pitch,  and  if  I  heard  a 
sudden  sharp  noise  it  would  make  me  jump 
nearly  out  of  my  skin.  So  all  the  way  to  Bos- 
ton, whenever  the  conductor  came  in  and 
shouted  out  the  station,  although  I  knew  he 
was  coming,  I  would  jump. 

Another  thing  that  greatly  annoyed  me  was 
the  loss  of  my  sense  of  direction.  When  I  had 
possessed  eyesight  I  had  been  remarkable  for 
that  sense  which  the  scientist  calls  orientation. 
I  could  plunge  into  the  deepest  forest  and 
tramp  for  hours  without  ever  losing  the  direc- 
tion of  home ;  but  the  first  time  I  went  aboard 
a  train  I  lost  this  comforting  sense  entirely. 
To  my  great  astonishment  the  train  started 
backwards,  and  backed  and  backed  for  hours 
until  we  should  have  been  in  central  New  York, 
according  to  my  calculations;  but  the  conduc- 
tor came  in  and  cried  out  Boston. 

At  the  first  glance  at  my  eyes  the  doctors 
said  the  case  was  a  very  serious  one,  and  finally 
nearly  a  dozen  of  the  best  oculists  at  the  Hub 
were  puzzling  over  the  case.  After  a  consul- 
tation that  lasted  for  a  part  of  two  days,  they 


66         HITTING   THE    DARK    TRAIL 

said  that  it  would  hardly  pay  to  operate,  as 
there  was  but  one  chance  in  a  hundred  of  gain- 
ing any  appreciable  vision,  while  I  might  lose 
the  sense  of  light  which  I  then  possessed. 

My  father  was  telegraphed  the  decision,  and 
we  considered  for  two  wretched  days  longer, 
and  then  decided  to  try  even  that  desperate 
chance.  Finally,  when  nearly  a  week  had  been 
consumed,  I  went  to  the  infirmary  for  the  first 
and  worst  of  the  many  operations  that  I  under- 
went battling  for  my  vision.  I  went  to  the 
operating  room  like  a  soldier,  so  it  seems  to 
me  now  as  I  look  back  upon  the  experience 
from  a  safe  distance,  and  with  much  more  cour- 
age than  I  could  put  into  any  such  enterprise 
now. 

The  doctor,  a  kindly,  bluff  old  man,  told  me 
that  I  was  to  undergo  a  very  severe  operation, 
and  that  they  could  give  me  no  anaesthetic,  as 
the  entire  object  of  the  operation  would  be  to 
hurt  the  eye  as  much  as  possible  in  hopes  of 
starting  up  its  action,  which  had  become  very 
sluggish.  He  said  he  was  sorry  that  I  could 
have  no  anaesthetic,  but  it  could  not  be  helped. 


SEARCHING   FOR   LIGHT  67 

I  said  if  he  would  give  me  back  my  eyesight 
he  might  skin  me  alive,  and  he  slapped  me  on 
the  back  and  said,  "Good  stuff,  Sonny." 

I  was  then  strapped  to  a  table,  my  hands 
were  tied,  and  a  rubber  blanket  was  placed 
under  my  head.  Then  an  ugly  little  machine 
for  holding  the  eye  still  was  brought  into  play. 
As  nearly  as  I  could  make  out  it  had  six  hooks 
placed  at  regular  intervals,  and  all  converging 
towards  a  center.  This  machine  was  sprung 
open,  both  the  upper  and  under  eyelids  were 
rolled  back,  and  then  these  six  hooks  were 
brought  together,  grappling  the  eye  at  the  six 
points  where  the  muscles  control  it.  When  it 
was  finally  in  place,  with  the  six  points  grip- 
ping my  eye,  I  thought  the  worst  was  over;  but 
the  torment  had  just  begun. 

"Now,"  said  the  doctor,  when  everything  was 
in  readiness,  "if  you  ever  want  to  see  again, 
don't  stir  your  eye  a  hundredth  part  of  an  inch. 
It  depends  as  much  on  you  as  on  me." 

My  nerve  was  not  of  the  best  by  that  time, 
for  I  had  been  in  the  operating  room  for  half 
an  hour  listening  to  the  groans  of  two  patients 


68          HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

who  had  been  operated  on  before  me,  but  I 
promised. 

We  all  know  how  it  hurts  to  get  a  bit  of  dust 
or  a  cinder  into  the  eye,  but  I  had  to  hold  per- 
fectly still  while  a  lancet  was  slowly  thrust  into 
the  eyeball.  Every  nerve  in  my  body  quivered, 
and  tears  ran  down  my  cheeks  like  rain.  Fi- 
nally the  incision  in  the  eyeball  had  been  made. 
Then  a  small  pair  of  tweezers  was  inserted  in 
the  cut  to  draw  forth  the  coagulated  lymph, 
and  this  process  was  repeated  until  I  was  so 
faint  that  they  had  to  stop.  Finally  the  eye 
was  bandaged  up,  and  left  to  rest  and  await 
results.  This  was  the  most  severe  of  half  a 
dozen  operations  that  I  ultimately  underwent. 

For  nearly  two  years  I  was  on  this  rack  of 
torment.  I  would  go  to  the  city  with  my 
mother,  and  the  doctors  would  operate  and 
then  wait  for  a  few  weeks  to  see  the  effect  of 
the  operation,  and  then  operate  again.  After 
a  while  they  would  send  me  home  to  rest  for  a 
couple  of  months. 

Six  different  trips  I  made  to  the  city.  Each 
time  I  was  so  fagged  out  at  the  end  of  the  or- 


SEARCHING   FOR   LIGHT  69 

deal  that  I  was  glad  to  escape  home ;  but  finally 
I  would  get  up  courage  again,  and  determine 
to  make  another  struggle  for  vision.  At  last, 
when  a  thousand  dollars  had  been  spent,  and  I 
had  undergone  six  operations,  the  doctors  told 
me  that  it  was  useless  to  try  further,  and  what 
they  had  feared  from  the  first  had  come  true.  I 
was  no  nearer  seeing  than  I  had  been  the  first 
time  I  came  to  the  city.  My  case  was  hopeless, 
and  I  would  have  to  make  up  my  mind  to  it. 

I  had  undergone  such  torment  and  been  so 
long  on  the  rack,  that  when  the  doctors  told 
me  this  I  was  for  that  day  the  happiest  boy  in 
America,  for  I  had  escaped  their  instruments 
of  torture  and  was  to  be  left  alone  for  a  while. 
I  did  not  then  remember  my  old  horror  of  being 
blind  for  the  rest  of  my  life,  but  in  a  day  or 
two  it  came  back  to  me,  and  I  was  again  back 
in  the  old  rut,  counting  the  hours  of  each  day, 
and  wondering  how  I  could  ever  manage  to 
live  out  the  weeks  ahead. 

When  we  were  leaving  the  infirmary  the  doc- 
tor had  said  to  my  mother:  "There  is  one 
thing  you  can  do  with  him ;  send  him  to  Perkins 


70         HITTING   THE   DARK   TRAIL 

Institution."  I  did  not  know  what  or  where 
that  place  might  be,  and  did  not  care,  but  it 
was  a  very  helpful  suggestion,  and  one  that 
ultimately  showed  me  the  way  out  of  darkness 
into  light. 


CHAPTER    V 
THE   DAWN   OF   HOPE 

I  come  within  reach  of  the  William  Cullen  Bryant 
library — I  prepare  to  enter  Perkins  Institute — 
Saying  good-bye  to  my  friends  and  the  country — 
The  Babel  of  the  great  city — I  meet  a  gruff  pro- 
fessor— A  veritable  beehive — Vacation  reminiscen- 
ces— Getting  acquainted  with  the  apparatus  for 
teaching  and  methods — Cuba  is  rediscovered — 
Work  for  work's  sake — Four  happy  years — Finan- 
cial independence,  the  watchword  of  the  sightless — 
I  try  music,  but  finally  give  it  up — A  story-teller  in 
the  chair-caning  shop — Reading  the  classics  in  va- 
cation— Public  readings  at  the  school  by  Julia  Ward 
Howe — I  write  my  first  poems — Editor  of  the  school 
paper — Selling  my  first  story — Post-graduate  work 
— A  little  about  Helen  Keller — Helen  learns  to 
speak — 111  of  the  grippe  and  return  home — The 
channel  of  my  life  is  changed. 

IN  the  Spring  of  1885  my  parents  sold  the 
old  farm  of  my  grandfather  in  Ashfield,  where 
I  had  spent  so  many  happy  days  as  a  child,  and 
where  grandmother  and  I  had  fed  the  birds 

and  the  squirrels,  and  we  moved  to  the  village 

71 


72         HITTING   THE   DARK   TRAIL 

of  Cummington,  Mass.,  the  birthplace  of  the 
poet,  William  Cullen  Bryant.  This  move,  be- 
cause of  the  fact  that  the  poet  had  given  the 
town  of  his  nativity  a  wonderful  library,  meant 
a  great  deal  to  me,  although  I  did  not  realize 
it  at  the  time. 

All  through  that  Summer  I  lived  in  the  same 
hopeless  condition,  not  knowing  or  caring  what 
was  ahead,  for  I  felt  sure  that  there  could  be 
nothing  but  heartache  and  heavy  despair. 
Preparations  were  going  forward  to  send  me 
to  Perkins  Institute,  but  even  that  did  not  in- 
terest me,  for  my  life  star  had  set,  or  so  it 
seemed  to  me,  and  there  was  nothing  to  do  but 
to  wait  as  best  I  could  for  the  end. 

At  that  time  I  had  a  morbid  feeling  that  only 
death  could  end  my  misery.  I  often  thought 
of  it,  and  wondered  if  my  people  would  miss 
me,  or  if  they  would  say  that  I  was  better  off 
out  of  the  world  and  they  were  glad  I  was  gone. 
The  year  before  my  accident  I  had  read  a  pa- 
thetic story  called  "Jericho  Jim,"  by  Rose 
Terry  Cook.  In  this  story,  which  made  a  vivid 
impression  on  my  young  imagination,  Jim  had 


THE    DAWN    OF    HOPE  73 

crawled  away  into  a  dark  corner  of  the  barn 
and  died  of  a  broken  heart.  When  I  should 
once  be  away  from  my  mother,  down  at  the 
school  for  the  blind,  which  I  felt  surely  held 
nothing  good  for  me,  I  would  crawl  away  into 
some  dark  corner  (all  corners  were  dark  now) 
and  die  of  a  broken  heart.  Then  if  they  would 
only  miss  me  just  a  little  at  home,  and  not  say 
I  was  better  off,  everything  would  be  all  right. 

Such  were  the  spirit  and  the  hopes  with 
which  I  started  for  Boston.  When  we  remem- 
ber the  high  hopes  of  the  seeing  boy  or  girl 
who  goes  away  to  school  it  can  well  be  imag- 
ined to  what  a  low  ebb  my  spirit  had  fallen. 
It  was  not  convenient  for  either  of  my  parents 
to  go  with  me,  so  a  neighbor,  a  kindly  person 
with  a  nasal  twrang,  accompanied  me. 

I  can  remember  as  well  as  though  it  were 
yesterday  the  morning  when  the  old  stage  rat- 
tled up  to  the  door,  and  my  trunk  was  put  on 
the  rack  behind,  and  I  said  good-bye  to  my 
people.  My  mother  and  sister  Alice  cried, 
and  my  two  younger  brothers  were  rather  de- 
pressed, while  as  for  me  I  certainly  thought 


74          HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

it  was  the  last  time  I  should  see  them,  for  was 
I  not  fully  determined  to  die  of  a  broken  heart 
and  come  back  in  a  pine  box  ?  But  kind  Provi- 
dence had  better  things  in  store  for  me. 

There  had  been  a  light  frost  that  morning, 
and  the  air  was  clear,  crisp,  and  full  of  ozone. 
The  countryside  was  an  orchestra  of  well-re- 
membered Autumn  sounds, — the  calling  of  the 
crows,  the  squalling  of  the  jays,  the  "quitting" 
of  the  robins  as  they  flew  hither  and  thither, 
flocking  for  the  long  flight  southward.  As  the 
old  stage  coach  rumbled  along  the  country 
road,  every  rod  of  which  was  familiar  to  me,  I 
conjured  up  a  picture  of  each  familiar  scene, 
and  said  good-bye  to  them  all, — the  woodland, 
the  meadows,  the  pasture  land,  and  all  the  rest 
of  the  dear  countryside  that  I  loved. 

For  a  wonder  I  made  the  trip  to  Boston 
without  backing  more  than  half  the  way,  which 
showed  that  I  was  getting  somewhat  accli- 
mated to  darkness.  But  in  the  street  cars  I 
was  constantly  on  tenter  hooks,  for  all  the 
deadly  sounds,  such  as  the  rumbling  of  dray 
wheels  and  the  thunder  of  trains,  always 


THE    DAWN    OF    HOPE  75 

seemed  coming  directly  at  me;  but  just  at  the 
opportune  moment  the  sound  would  veer  off 
and  we  would  escape  being  ground  to  atoms. 
Even  now,  and  I  have  been  schooling  my 
nerves  for  thirty  years,  to  stand  upon  a  plat- 
form while  a  night  express  goes  thundering 
by  within  a  few  feet  gives  me  an  eerie  sensa- 
tion. As  a  general  rule,  sight  gives  confidence, 
and  a  lack  of  it  timidity. 

At  the  North  Station  in  Boston  we  saw  sev- 
eral other  Perkins  pupils,  who  were  returning 
to  the  school  after  the  Summer  vacation.  Cap- 
tain John  Wright,  the  physical  instructor  at 
Perkins,  was  escorting  them  over  to  South 
Boston,  and  I  at  once  set  him  down  as  the 
gruffest  old  chap  I  had  ever  seen,  although 
later  on,  when  I  got  acquainted  with  him,  I 
discovered  that  this  was  merely  a  manner  that 
he  put  on,  probably  to  keep  the  boys  in  sub- 
jection. 

When  we  went  up  the  long  flight  of  steps 
leading  from  Broadway,  South  Boston,  to  the 
Institute,  I  did  not  experience  even  a  flutter  of 
curiosity  as  to  what  was  ahead  of  me  inside  the 


76          HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

portal.  But  I  was  rather  astonished  to  find 
everything  hurry  and  bustle  inside,  for  the 
boys  were  racing  up  and  downstairs  and  along 
the  corridors  at  a  pace  that  fairly  took  my 
breath  away.  I  had  imagined  that  the  Insti- 
tution would  be  a  sort  of  home  or  asylum  where 
we  would  wear  away  the  weary  hours  in  in- 
dolent idleness  and  be  waited  on  by  attendants, 
but  instead  I  had  come  into  a  hive  of  bees  at 
swarming  time,  judging  from  the  humming 
and  buzzing  about  me. 

It  was  "Hello  Bill,"  "How  are  you,  Tom?" 
and  "That  you,  Jack?  Did  you  have  a  pleas- 
ant vacation?"  "I  did  so  and  so,  what  did  you 
do?"  The  exuberance  and  high  spirits  sur- 
prised me  not  a  little,  but  these  boys  had  not 
been  through  what  I  had.  I  could  never  feel 
like  that. 

Soon  the  kind  neighbor  who  had  come  down 
with  me  left,  and  I  felt  that  the  last  tie  that 
bound  me  to  home  and  friends  had  been  sev- 
ered. I  was  then  put  into  the  hands  of  one 
of  the  older  pupils,  who  showed  me  about  the 
school.  We  went  through  the  many  school- 


THE    DAWN    OF    HOPE  77 

rooms,  and  he  showed  me  a  raised  print  book 
about  the  size  of  Webster's  Unabridged  Dic- 
tionary. Eagerly  I  passed  my  hand  over  the 
rough  surface  of  the  page.  Perhaps  I  could 
get  back  to  books  through  this  medium,  and 
that  would  certainly  be  a  comfort.  But  the 
page  felt  like  a  hetchel,  and  was  as  meaning- 
less as  an  unplaned  board. 

Then  he  showed  me  a  type  slate  for  doing 
examples  in  arithmetic  and  algebra,  with  dif- 
ferent characters  on  either  end  of  the  type. 
The  type  were  set  up  in  cells,  and  then  the 
computation  was  made  by  touch;  but  this  too 
looked  hopeless. 

Finally  he  led  me  over  to  a  dissected  map  of 
the  United  States.  This  map  was  made  like 
a  Chinese  puzzle,  with  each  state  sawed  out  of 
half -inch  board,  and  the  whole  was  set  up  in 
an  indented  outline  of  the  United  States. 
Listlessly  my  hands  wandered  over  the  map; 
this  too  was  going  to  be  another  disappoint- 
ment. When  I  had  about  given  up  looking, 
my  hand  slid  down  into  the  Caribbean  Sea, 
or  just  above  it,  where  lies  the  Pearl  of  the 


78          HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

Antilles.  Then  my  hand  strayed  up  and  closed 
over  that  unfortunate  island. 

A  flash  of  intelligence  like  lightning  shot 
through  my  brain.  Eagerly,  with  trembling 
fingers,  I  felt  the  familiar  outline  from  end  to 
end.  I  could  hardly  believe  my  fingers,  but  it 
was  all  there,  the  outline  that  I  knew  so  well 
from  the  seeing  map. 

"I  have  found  Cuba.  It's  Cuba!"  I  fairly 
shouted. 

Indeed  I  had  found  Cuba,  and  much 
besides. 

Perhaps  this  was  the  greatest  discovery  that 
I  ever  made,  for  I  had  found  myself, — myself, 
so  long  lost  in  the  hopeless  jungle  of  darkness 
and  despair. 

This  discovery  that  I  was  once  more  in  con- 
nection with  the  world,  and  that  I  could  do 
things  with  my  fingers  which  I  had  formerly 
done  through  eyesight,  set  my  face  in  the  right 
direction,  and  after  that  I  was  always  inter- 
ested in  what  they  showed  me  about  the  school, 
and  willing  to  do  my  very  best  to  get  the  ut- 
most out  of  their  methods.  For  the  next  four 


THE    DAWN    OF    HOPE  79 

years  I  worked  as  few  students  have  ever 
worked  at  any  seeing  school. 

In  a  couple  of  weeks'  time  I  had  mastered 
braille  and  could  read  and  write  it  readily. 
This  is  a  system  of  writing  through  punching 
dots  in  paper  by  means  of  a  stiletto,  the  paper 
having  been  placed  in  a  braille  slate  for  the  pur- 
pose. The  rapidity  with  which  I  learned 
braille  may  serve  as  a  sample  of  the  manner  in 
which  I  went  at  my  work.  I  had  been  so  long 
idle,  that  work  was  now  play  to  me,  and  the 
days  were  not  long  enough  in  which  to  study 
and  work.  I  had  always  been  a  bookish  boy, 
and  I  now  discovered  that  there  was  a  craving 
for  knowledge  inside  me  that  would  not  let  me 
rest  as  long  as  I  could  get  knowledge  through 
my  finger  tips. 

In  this  wonderful  school  for  the  blind,  which 
was  founded  by  Dr.  Samuel  G.  Howe,  the 
philanthropist,  over  eighty  years  ago,  many 
things  besides  the  usual  school  studies  are 
taught ;  for  it  is  here  that  the  pupil  has  to  gain 
the  knowledge  or  handicraft  with  which  he 
expects  to  support  himself  when  he  shall  go 


80          HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

out  into  the  world, — and  all  expect  to  support 
themselves.  Dependence  upon  the  bounty  of 
friends  or  the  town  is  the  worst  bugaboo  of  the 
blind.  They  like  to  fight  the  battle  of  life 
without  outside  aid,  and  to  take  their  places 
in  the  seeing  world,  man  to  man. 

So  in  addition  to  the  regular  academic 
course  I  took  music,  as  did  many  of  the  pupils. 
My  ear  and  natural  musical  gifts  were  not  of 
the  first  order,  but  I  had  patience.  It  was  no 
hardship  to  sit  at  a  piano  and  practice  a  diffi- 
cult passage  for  three  or  four  hours  on  a 
stretch,  going  over  and  over  a  half  dozen  bars, 
so  I  partly  made  up  by  diligence  what  I  lacked 
in  natural  musical  temperament.  But  I  was 
never  a  success  as  a  musician,  and  I  soon  saw 
that  music  could  not  be  my  life  work.  For  the 
same  reason  piano  tuning,  which  I  also  partly 
learned,  was  not  suited  to  my  ability,  so  that 
I  gave  that  up  as  well. 

Chaircaning  and  the  other  branches  of  in- 
dustrial work  interested  me  only  temporarily. 
In  the  chaircaning  room,  however,  I  spent 
many  pleasant  hours  working  and  telling  sto- 


THE    DAWN    OF    HOPE  81 

ries  to  the  other  boys  who  were  interested  in 
such  things.  Half  a  dozen  congenial  spirits 
would  always  gather  in  my  corner  of  the  room, 
and  while  our  fingers  flew  I  told  stories.  Ev- 
erything of  Dickens  was  retold  in  simple  form 
to  suit  my  audience.  Most  of  Scott  was  served 
up  in  the  same  manner.  Robinson  Crusoe  and 
the  Swiss  Family  Robinson  did  not  have  to 
be  simplified,  nor  did  the  Arabian  Nights }  nor 
a  grist  of  fairy  stories  which  I  had  read. 

I  told  stories  in  this  manner  two  or  three 
hours  a  day  for  nine  months,  and  finally  ran 
out,  and  had  to  make  up  yarns  for  the  occa- 
sion. These  were  usually  of  hunting,  or  In- 
dians, and  pleased  the  boys  better  than  Dickens 
or  Scott. 

About  the  second  year  of  my  life  at  Perkins 
Institute  I  began  to  dream  dreams,  and  to  ex- 
perience those  strange  longings  and  aspira- 
tions in  my  inner  being  which  the  reader  has 
no  doubt  also  experienced.  We  attended 
many  concerts  and  lectures  of  the  finest  type, 
and  these,  coupled  with  the  reading  of  the 
classics  which  I  did  at  home  in  vacation  time, 


82         HITTING   THE    DARK    TRAIL 

started  the  love  of  beauty  and  truth  burning 
in  my  soul. 

Julia  Ward  Howe,  the  widow  of  Samuel 
G.  Howe,  came  often  to  the  school  from  her 
home  in  the  city  and  read  to  us,  both  from  her 
own  fine  poems,  and  from  the  classics.  Her 
gifted  daughter,  Julia  Romana  Anagnos,  the 
wife  of  Michael  Anagnos,  Superintendent  of 
the  school,  read  us  "The  Princess,"  "In  Me- 
moriam,"  and  many  other  selections  from  the 
English  poets. 

So  finally  I  found  myself  drifting  away  from 
music  and  the  industrial  work  of  the  school 
and  wishing  with  all  the  mad  intensity  of  youth 
that  I  might  be  a  writer ;  that  I  might  produce 
some  lines  full  of  beauty  and  tenderness  like 
those  I  read. 

My  mother  at  this  time  was  an  invalid  and 
she  read  to  me  many  times  as  much  in  the  Sum- 
mer vacation  as  I  heard  at  school  during  the 
rest  of  the  year.  She  was  a  poet  herself  with 
a  fine  appreciation  of  the  best  things  in  litera- 
ture, both  English  and  translations,  so  we  soon 
went  far  afield. 


THE    DAWN    OF   HOPE  83 

One  Summer  we  spent  entirely  reading 
the  Italian  poets  Dante,  Tasso  and  Petrarch. 
We  read  and  reread  them  until  we  were  as  fa- 
miliar with  the  lines  of  the  "Divine  Comedy" 
as  we  were  with  the  "Barefoot  Boy."  "The 
Sonnets  to  Laura"  were  as  familiar  as  was  the 
"Psalm  of  Life,"  and  "Jerusalem  Delivered" 
was  as  much  ours  as  was  "Paradise  Lost." 

So  I  began  to  long  to  write.  Music  might 
be  all  right  for  the  pupils  who  had  special  mu- 
sical gifts,  and  did  not  have  this  awful  burning 
desire  to  write.  So  I  began  neglecting  my 
music  and  devoting  my  time  surreptitiously  to 
writing.  I  took  my  braille  slate  to  the  music 
room  and  wrote  when  I  should  have  been  prac- 
ticing Chopin  or  Bach.  I  also  took  it  to  bed 
with  me  and  wrote  when  I  should  have  been 
sleeping. 

Soon  I  had  gained  a  reputation  as  the  lit- 
erary pupil  of  the  school.  Special  essays  and 
stories  for  public  occasions  often  fell  to  me.  I 
became  editor  of  the  school  paper,  and  in  the 
debating  club  earned  the  name  of  Demos- 
thenes. 


84          HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

My  first  poems  found  their  way  into  our 
little  school  paper  called  "The  Echo."  This 
paper  was  printed  both  in  braille,  for  the  use  of 
the  pupils,  and  in  typewriting  for  the  edifica- 
tion of  the  teachers.  Much  of  the  typewritten 
copy  I  made  nights  in  bed  after  the  silence 
bell  had  struck.  I  had  a  small  typewriter 
which  I  covered  up  with  the  bedclothes  and 
could  manipulate  nicely. 

Several  times  Captain  Wright,  the  vigilance 
man,  came  into  my  room  and  walked  over  to 
my  bed,  to  discover  where  that  strange  click- 
ing came  from,  but  I  was  always  sleeping 
soundly  when  he  appeared  and  the  typewriter 
was  hidden  beneath  the  bedclothes,  so  my  se- 
cret was  never  discovered. 

I  also  began,  encouraged  by  my  mother, 
trying  some  of  my  first  crude  poems  on  the 
country  newspapers.  This  was  during  my 
Summer  vacations,  and  to  my  great  delight 
several  were  printed.  I  likewise  tried  my  hand 
at  story  writing  and  sold  my  first  story  to  my 
good  friend,  Mr.  Charles  Warner,  for  use  in 
a  pictorial  book,  called  Picturesque  Hamp- 


THE    DAWN   OF    HOPE  85 

shire.  When  I  received  a  check  for  five  dol- 
lars for  this  story  my  cup  of  happiness  was 
full. 

After  four  years  of  hard  work  I  graduated 
from  Perkins  Institute  as  valedictorian  of  my 
class.  This  was  in  1890,  and  the  following  year 
I  returned  to  the  school  for  post-graduate 
work. 

I  also  began  studying  elocution  with  teach- 
ers from  the  Emerson  School  in  Boston,  with 
an  idea  of  fitting  myself  for  public  speaking, 
and  in  addition  began  reading  law,  and  attend- 
ing court  each  day  in  Boston  in  order  that  I 
might  acquaint  myself  with  court  procedure, 
but  my  heart  was  never  in  this  work.  It 
seemed  sordid  and  vulgar  compared  with  my 
higher  dreams  of  literature.  I  had  to  force 
myself  to  this  work,  and  it  was  always  irksome 
to  me,  but  it  was  not  destined  that  I  should  be 
a  lawyer. 

I  must  not  leave  the  subject  of  Perkins  In- 
stitute without  saying  something  of  my  friend 
and  fellow  struggler,  Helen  Keller.  She  came 
to  the  school  during  my  second  year,  and  news 


86 

of  the  coming  of  the  little  deaf,  dumb,  and 
blind  girl  from  Georgia  spread  among  us  like 
wildfire.  Laura  Bridgman  we  had  always 
been  interested  in,  and  birthday  parties  and 
receptions  were  often  held  in  her  honor.  These 
parties  always  attracted  to  us  such  men  as  Ed- 
ward Everett  Hale,  Bishop  Phillips  Brooks, 
James  Freeman  Clarke,  and  other  scholars 
and  preachers.  But  this  young  new  life  com- 
ing into  our  midst  was  a  much  more  engross- 
ing thought.  She  had  come  to  be  one  of  us, 
and  we  would  be  allowed  to  watch  her  struggle 
for  light  and  happiness  daily. 

I  do  not  know  why,  but  the  thought  of 
this  little  girl  in  the  great  dark  and  the  vast 
silence  gripped  my  imagination  with  a  clutch 
like  steel,  and  her  life  was  a  great  source  of 
inspiration  to  me.  If  she  could  make  good, 
how  much  more  ought  the  rest  of  us,  who  had 
only  a  small  part  of  her  handicap! 

One  of  our  own  graduates,  Miss  Annie 
Mansfield  Sullivan,  was  given  the  tremendous 
task  of  unlocking  the  doors  of  darkness  and 
silence,  and  that  made  the  undertaking  even 


THE    DAWN    OF   HOPE  87 

more  interesting  to  us.  Every  few  months 
Mr.  Anagnos  would  give  a  long  report  in 
chapel  of  her  progress,  so  we  were  kept  in  close 
touch  with  what  went  on.  At  the  end  of  the 
first  year  Mr.  Anagnos  reported  that  great 
progress  had  been  made,  and  that  Miss  Sulli- 
van was  to  rank  with  Dr.  Howe,  who  had  first 
taught  Laura  Bridgman,  as  a  teacher  of  deaf 
blind  mutes. 

At  all  the  public  functions  of  the  school 
Helen  was  present,  and  we  heard  much  of  her 
triumphs  one  by  one,  as  she  made  rapid  strides 
towards  knowledge  and  happiness.  But  hap- 
piness had  always  been  hers,  for  it  was  said 
that  when  she  first  came  to  the  school  she  was 
as  frolicsome  and  playful  and  full  of  high  spir- 
its as  a  kitten. 

I  was  walking  on  the  piazza  one  morning  in 
early  Spring,  longing  for  a  whiff  of  the  fields 
and  meadows  at  home,  when  one  of  the  teach- 
ers came  out,  bringing  a  copy  of  the  Boston 
Journal,  and  her  manner  was  greatly  excited. 
Helen  Keller  had  been  taught  to  speak.  There 
was  a  column  and  a  half  about  it  in  the  Jour- 


88          HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

nal,  and  most  eagerly  we  devoured  the  won- 
derful news.  The  feat  had  been  accomplished 
at  the  Horace  Mann  school  for  deaf  mutes  in 
Boston.  Wonder  of  wonders!  Her  teacher 
had  hoped  to  keep  the  fact  a  secret  and  sur- 
prise Helen's  people  with  the  glad  tidings 
when  they  should  go  South  for  the  Summer 
vacation,  but  the  ubiquitous  newspaper  man 
had  been  too  much  for  them,  and  here  the  se- 
cret was  in  type  where  all  the  world  might 
read. 

I  have  promised  to  make  this  book  short, 
yet  I  must  include  two  of  Helen's  optimistic 
letters,  which  she  wrote  me  several  years  later: 


CAMBRIDGE,   May  7,   1906. 
MY  DEAR  MR.  HAWKES: 

Your  very  kind  letter  and  the  fragrant  blossoms  of 
hope  brought  me  a  great  deal  of  pleasure  and  I  thank 
you  sincerely  for  your  thoughtfulness.  I  love  May 
flowers  as  I  love  no  other  children  of  the  wild.  Their 
sweetness  seems  one  with  the  thrill  of  life,  and  the  up- 
springing  joy  that  never  deserts  me. 

I  have  not  been  ill  since  February.  I  feel  very  well 
these  beautiful  Spring  days.  Your  message  found  me 
sitting  in  the  sun,  breathing  deep  the  pure  morning  air 


THE    DAWN    OF    HOPE  89 

that  came  through  the  open  window,  "and  its  pureness 
is  its  beauty." 

I  go  out  of  doors  as  much  as  possible  and  grow 
stronger  every  day.  From  first  to  last  the  newspapers 
have  exaggerated  my  ill  health  and  made  a  good  story 
out  of  nothing.  The  fact  is  I  got  so  tired  last  Winter 
I  needed  complete  quiet  for  some  weeks,  and  then  my 
friends  urged  me  not  to  do  much,  but  pass  the  time 
pleasantly,  until  I  felt  quite  strong  again.  I  found  it 
very  tiresome  to  retire  myself,  but  now  I  am  at  liberty 
and  eager  for  the  race.  It  is  not  nearly  half  run,  I 
think,  and  I  hope  I  shall  go  farther  than  before  with- 
out stopping  to  breathe.  The  undone  beckons  me  on 
and  on  endlessly. 

Please  remember  me  kindly  to  Mrs.  Hawkes.     I  have 
often  thought  with  pleasure  of  the  day  I  saw  you  both 
in  Cambridge.     With  cordial  greetings  I  am, 
Sincerely  your  friend, 

HELEN    KELLER. 

CAMBRIDGE,  May  15,  1Q08. 
My  DEAR  MR.  HAWKES: 

I  wish  I  could  write  the  pleasure  it  gives  me  to  have 
your  kind  letter  and  to  possess  the  books  you  sent  me. 
I  have  not  yet  had  time  to  read  any  of  your  works, 
except  the  verses  you  so  kindly  copied  for  me.  In  col- 
lege I  can  never  do  half  the  pleasant  things  that  I  would 
like  to.  But  my  teacher  has  promised  that  this  Sum- 
mer, when  we  have  more  leisure,  she  will  read  the 
books  to  me.  She  says  she  thinks  that  "The  Mountain 
to  the  Pine"  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  sonnets  writ- 


90          HITTING   THE   DARK   TRAIL 

ten  in  many  a  day.  I  thought  of  you  last  week.  I  was 
at  Northampton  and  knew  you  were  not  far  off,  but  I 
had  only  two  days  to  spend  with  my  friends  at  Smith 
College,  so  it  was  not  possible  for  us  to  meet  then.  I 
cannot  tell  you  how  much  I  enjoyed  being  there,  among 
the  hills  and  brooks  and  groves,  away  from  books  and 
articles  and  the  many  small  worries  that  pursue  me 
from  one  end  of  the  college  year  to  the  other.  The  ap- 
ple trees  were  most  beautiful  and  my  heart  ran  riot 
with  delight  as  I  drank  in  the  fragrant  air. 

We  expect  to  spend  the  Summer  in  a  little  cottage  at 
Wrentham,  a  lovely  country  place  not  far  from  Bos- 
ton. The  cottage  is  right  on  the  edge  of  a  beautiful 
lake,  and  I  have  a  little  boat  there  which  I  can  row 
myself,  so  there  will  be  much  to  enjoy. 

I  am  sure  I  should  enjoy  a  visit  to  Hadley.  It  is 
one  of  the  many  pleasures  I  have  to  look  forward  to. 

With  kindest  regards  and  hope  that  we  may  meet 
again  soon,  I  am  sincerely  your  friend, 

HELEN  KELLER. 


Here  is  Helen's  favorite  of  all  my  sonnets. 
She  afterward  quoted  it  in  the  Century  Maga- 
zine, with  a  glowing  eulogy  of  the  simple  little 
poem,  and  since  Mr.  Stedman  included  the 
sonnet  in  his  American  Anthology,  Miss  Kel- 
ler's critical  judgment  has  been  seconded  by 
the  best  authority. 


THE   DAWN   OF   HOPE  91 

THE    MOUNTAIN    TO   THE    PINE 

Thou  tall  majestic  monarch  of  the  wood, 

That  standest  where  no  wild  vine  dares  to  creep, 

Men  call  thee  old,  and  say  that  thou  hast  stood 

A  century  upon  my  rugged  steep. 

Yet  unto  me,  thy  life  is  but  a  day, 

When  I  recall  the  things  that  I  have  seen, 

The  forest  monarchs  that  have  passed  away 

Upon  the  spot  where  first  I  saw  thy  green. 

For  I  am  older  than  the  age  of  man, 

Of  all  the  living  things  that  crawl  or  creep, 

Or  birds  of  air,  or  creatures  of  the  deep ; 

I  was  the  first  dim  outline  of  God's  plan; 

Only  the  waters  of  the  restless  sea, 

And  the  infinite  stars  in  heaven,  are  old  to  me. 

In  the  Spring  of  1890,  I  feU  ill  of  the 
grippe,  and  partly  because  I  was  much  over- 
worked, was  unable  to  recover  quickly.  I  was 
finally  invalided  home  early  in  that  Spring, 
and  circumstances  shaped  themselves  so  that 
I  never  returned,  although  I  had  hoped  to  do 
so  in  the  Autumn,  and  to  take  up  again  the 
study  of  law  and  oratory,  in  which  I  was  mak- 
ing good  progress. 


CHAPTER    VI 
THE    LITERARY    STRUGGLE 

J.  Stuart  Mill  read  by  a  boy  eight  years  old — Writing 
poems  for  local  newspapers,  including  the  Spring- 
field Republican — I  give  my  first  lecture  upon  the 
American  poets — Lecturing  and  writing  poems  for 
a  living — I  move  to  Hadley,  Massachusetts,  and  be- 
come acquainted  with  my  future  wife — Writing 
poems  for  popular  magazines — My  three  P's,  pa- 
tience, perseverance  and  pluck — Three  years  of  lec- 
turing in  country  towns — Peril  of  traveling  alone 
under  modern  conditions — Charles  Eliot  Norton's 
opinion  of  this  commercial  age,  and  my  likelihood  of 
success  with  poetry — In  the  literary  struggle,  never 
say  die — My  most  popular  poems — I  publish  my 
first  book — Five  volumes  of  poems  and  what  they 
netted  me — My  best  helper  and  friend  passes  on. 

I  HAD  been  greatly  overworked  when  the 
grippe  seized  me,  and  as  usual  Dame  Nature 
took  full  toll  for  my  long  abuse  of  her  bounty. 
For  months  I  was  barely  able  to  drag  about, 

but  I  studied  and  read  constantly,  and  all 

92  , 


THE  LITERARY  STRUGGLE     93 

the  time  kept  up  a  terrific  thinking  when  not 
too  weary. 

Being  denied  the  broader  activities  of  the 
great  city,  I  at  once  entered  with  what  strength 
and  ambition  I  could  muster  into  the  social  and 
literary  activity  of  the  little  town  of  Cumming- 
ton,  where  my  parents  then  lived.  I  was  soon 
made  president  of  a  temperance  society,  and 
in  that  capacity  went  to  several  neighboring 
towns  making  speeches  and  representing  the 
local  society. 

Each  day,  all  through  the  Spring  and  Sum- 
mer, when  it  was  fair,  myself  and  my  youngest 
brother,  Ernest,  whom  I  always  called  the 
Kid,  would  go  down  into  the  meadow,  back  of 
our  house,  where  a  branch  of  the  Westfield 
river  wound  its  leisurely  way.  We  always  car- 
ried an  armful  of  books,  and  there  under  a 
large  chestnut  tree,  where  it  was  cool  and  sweet 
and  where  I  could  hear  the  running  water,  we 
devoured  small  libraries  upon  different  sub- 
jects. 

The  Kid,  who  was  only  seven  or  eight  years 
old,  was  a  fine  scholar,  and  a  good  reader,  so 


94          HITTING   THE    DARK   TRAIL 

by  turning  story-teller  myself  every  few  pages, 
and  sandwiching  in  fairy  stories,  Arabian 
Nights,  and  all  the  boys'  books  I  had  ever  read, 
together  with  much  adult  reading,  made  over 
and  reduced  to  the  terms  of  a  small  boy's  un- 
derstanding, we  worried  through  much  heavy 
reading.  I  remember  among  other  things  we 
read  seven  huge  political  economies.  The  ar- 
duousness  of  this  reading  for  the  small  boy, 
as  well  as  myself,  can  well  be  imagined  when 
I  tell  you  that  one  of  these  works  upon  politi- 
cal economy  was  J.  Stuart  Mill's  prodigious 
work  of  two  volumes  containing  fourteen  hun- 
dred pages.  We  often  read  for  half  a  day  at 
a  time,  while  I  told  twenty  or  thirty  stories 
to  get  the  kid  to  keep  at  the  dull  books. 

We  also  took  fishing  tackle  along,  and  when 
we  were  tired  of  reading  would  fish  or  go  in 
swimming.  I  was  a  good  swimmer  and  greatly 
enjoyed  both  swimming  and  fishing,  so  we 
would  make  out  a  very  full  half  day. 

It  must  not  be  imagined,  however,  that  I 
let  the  reading  of  political  economy  in  any  de- 
gree dampen  my  ardor  for  the  poets,  for  this 


THE  LITERARY  STRUGGLE     95 

heavy  reading  was  merely  supplementary  to 
my  thoughts  of  law  and  politics.  I  have  al- 
ways been  deeply  interested  in  politics;  not 
only  those  of  my  own  country,  for  which  I  have 
a  passionate  patriotism,  but  also  those  of  the 
world.  Ever  since  I  was  large  enough  to  hold 
up  a  newspaper  I  have  devoured  all  the  daily 
papers  I  could  lay  hands  on.  I  consider  the 
press  the  very  best  teacher  of  contemporary 
history  that  one  can  have,  provided  one  reads 
discriminately.  So  merely  by  reading  the  pa- 
pers and  remembering  everything  that  is  im- 
portant, I  have  a  very  accurate  and  minute 
history  of  the  world's  great  events  for  the  past 
thirty-five  years.  Not  only  do  I  remember  all 
the  wars,  their  battles  and  their  causes,  but 
also  all  the  political  changes,  and  the  great 
men  who  have  figured  in  each.  There  is  oc- 
casionally a  man  so  narrow-minded  that  he 
considers  the  reading  of  newspapers  a  detri- 
ment, but  it  seems  to  me  that  such  a  man  has 
passed  by  a  gold  mine  which  he  did  not  even 
know  existed. 

All  through  the  Summer  of  1891,  while  I 


96         HITTING   THE    DARK    TRAIL 

was  plugging  away  at  economics  I  was  also 
reading  the  poets,  and  dreaming  dreams. 
When  the  fret  and  struggle  of  life  depressed 
and  crushed  me  I  always  turned  to  the  poets 
for  strength  and  inspiration.  Nearly  every 
day  of  this  Summer  I  also  wrote  verses,  some 
of  which  were  good  enough  to  be  printed  in  so 
literary  a  newspaper  as  the  Springfield  Re- 
publican, And  being  interested  in  the  lives 
of  the  poets  as  well  as  their  work,  I  began 
writing  my  first  lecture,  which  I  finally  called 
"An  Hour  with  the  American  Poets." 

When  Autumn  came  around,  and  the  corn 
was  shocked  and  the  bloom  was  on  the  pump- 
kins, and  it  was  again  time  for  me  to  turn  my 
face  cityward  and  resume  my  studies,  I  found 
that  the  effects  of  the  grippe  had  not  fully  left 
me,  so  I  delayed  going  from  week  to  week. 
But  I  could  not  remain  idle,  as  it  was  not  in 
my  nature. 

Partly  for  diversion,  and  partly  for  the  few 
dollars  that  I  received  for  it,  I  began  giving 
my  lecture  on  the  American  poets  in  the  coun- 
try towns  about  Cummington.  I  drove  from 


THE  LITERARY  STRUGGLE     97 

town  to  town  in  a  hired  team.  Sometimes  this 
was  driven  by  my  sister  Alice,  who  was  always 
deeply  interested  in  my  work,  and  sometimes 
by  my  good  brother  Enos,  who  was  always 
helpful,  but  four  or  five  years  later  the  Kid 
took  his  place  as  traveling  companion  on  many 
lecture  trips.  My  success  from  an  artistic 
standpoint  with  these  lectures  was  quite  pro- 
nounced, as  I  received  fine  notices  from  the 
editors  and  literary  people  who  chanced  to 
hear  me,  but  the  pecuniary  rewards  were  at 
first  small.  I  found,,  however,  that  if  I  traveled 
fast  and  far  enough,  and  did  not  mind  hard- 
ship, I  could  make  a  living, — not  a  luxurious 
one,  but  still  a  livelihood. 

So  I  finally  gave  up  the  idea  of  returning  to 
Boston  for  the  study  of  law,  redoubled  my  ef- 
forts with  verse  writing,  and  gave  more  lec- 
tures on  the  American  poets  each  year.  Like- 
wise, with  more  ambition  than  common  sense, 
I  wrote  a  lecture  on  the  civil  war,  which  I 
gave  one  season. 

In  the  Spring  of  1892,  my  parents  removed 
to  Hadley,  Mass.,  and  I  transferred  my  liter- 


98          HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

ary  efforts  to  that  historical  old  town,  which 
has  since  been  the  scene  of  my  literary  activi- 
ties. The  move  to  Hadley  affected  my  life  in 
several  ways,  for  it  was  there  that  I  made  the 
acquaintance  of  the  girl  who  seven  years  later 
became  my  helpmate  and  life  companion,  and 
also  first  met  my  friend,  Elbridge  Kingsley, 
the  celebrated  painter-engraver,  and  several 
other  writers  who  lived  in  the  Connecticut  val- 
ley,— prominent  among  whom  was  Charles 
Goodrich  Whiting,  the  literary  and  art  editor 
of  the  Springfield  Republican.  Mr.  Whiting 
had  printed  some  of  my  first  poems  and  en- 
couraged me  to  write  more,  and  his  friendship 
was  for  several  years  one  of  my  chief  stimuli 
to  literary  endeavor. 

But  it  was  not  until  1893  that  I  seriously 
set  about  making  literature  my  life  work,  and 
attempted  the  storming  of  that  citadel  known 
as  the  editor's  sanctum.  I  had  read  that  poets 
starved  in  garrets,  and  that  Milton  sold  "Para- 
dise Lost"  for  ten  pounds,  and  that  Oliver 
Goldsmith  went  to  bed  and  pawned  his  clothes 
that  he  might  publish  the  "Deserted  Village," 


THE  LITERARY  STRUGGLE     99 

but  the  heart  of  youth  is  buoyant.  We  always 
think  that  we  can  succeed  and  make  a  living 
where  the  other  fellow  has  starved,  so  nothing 
daunted  by  these  scareheads,  I  threw  my  whole 
fortune,  which  then  was  merely  my  time  and 
my  heart's  best  blood,  into  the  almost  hopeless 
task  of  making  a  living  by  writing  poems  and 
giving  literary  lectures.  There  was  at  least 
one  consolation,  even  if  I  did  starve:  this 
was  the  thing  I  wanted  to  do,  and  there  was 
a  world  of  satisfaction  in  that. 

I  do  not  think  anyone  ever  worked  harder 
than  I  did  in  the  next  two  or  three  years,  or 
received  more  hard  knocks.  But  hard  knocks 
seemed  to  toughen  me,  and  my  whole  success, 
such  as  it  is,  has  been  built  up  on  a  series  of 
small  failures,  so  I  kept  right  on,  no  matter 
what  befell. 

It  must  not  be  imagined  for  a  moment  that 
any  small  fraction  of  my  literary  success, 
either  as  a  lecturer  or  as  a  writer,  ever  came 
easy.  Some  literary  people  stumble  on  to  suc- 
cess and  become  famous  in  a  few  months,  or 
even  weeks,  but  my  success  has  been  gained  by 


100        HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

heartbreaking  toil,  through  what  I  call  my 
three  P's,  patience,  perseverance,  and  pluck. 

Some  people  are  lucky,  and  fate  or  the  stars 
seem  to  send  good  fortune  to  them,  but  I  can- 
not remember  ever  having  had  what  might  be 
called  a  stroke  of  good  fortune  in  my  whole 
life.  Every  inch  of  the  way  I  have  fought. 
No  miner  delving  for  gold  in  the  frozen  Arctic, 
with  the  thermometer  at  sixty  below  zero,  and 
the  earth  frozen  for  God  only  knows  how  far 
down,  has  ever  sweated  and  struggled  more 
than  I.  No  soldier  upon  the  weary  march, 
loaded  down  by  his  heavy  knapsack  and  gun, 
with  the  mud  halfway  to  his  knees,  has  ever 
had  to  fight  as  I  have.  My  success,  what  little 
I  have  gained,  has  been  literally  dug  out  of  the 
solid  rock  of  adversity,  with  naked,  bleeding 
fingers. 

To  meet  my  first  lecture  engagement  I  drove 
ten  miles  in  an  open  carriage  in  one  of  the 
worst  sleet  and  rain  storms  that  I  ever  experi- 
enced, only  to  find  that  the  hall  was  closed  and 
the  lecture  off  for  that  night. 

For  my  second  engagement  I  drove  eight 


THE    LITERARY    STRUGGLE         101 

miles  in  a  blinding  snowstorm  to  find  thirteen 
people  waiting  to  hear  me.  I  received  a  dollar 
and  sixty-five  cents  for  this  lecture,  and  spent 
five  for  advertising  and  team  hire,  while  the 
janitor  took  pity  on  me  and  gave  me  the  hall 
hire. 

For  the  first  two  or  three  years  of  my  lec- 
turing experience  I  stuck  almost  entirely  to 
the  country  towns,  partly  through  having  un- 
derestimated the  quality  of  my  lectures,  and 
partly  because  I  wished  to  perfect  myself  as  a 
public  speaker  by  practicing  on  the  simple 
country  people.  Imagine  my  astonishment 
when  I  finally  ventured  into  the  cities  to  find 
that  I  had  wasted  the  better  part  of  that  time, 
as  the  educated  city  people  were  much  more 
appreciative  of  my  efforts,  and  the  pecuniary 
rewards  were  greater.  However,  I  hope  to 
avenge  myself  upon  fate  for  this  hard  appren- 
ticeship by  writing  a  humorous  book  of  my 
experiences  of  those  three  arduous  years. 

During  the  first  year  I  had  a  traveling  com- 
panion. Sometimes  it  was  my  sister  Alice,  or 
my  good  brother  Enos,  or  even  the  Kid,  who 


102       HITTING   THE    DARK    TRAIL 

greatly  enjoyed  such  trips.  He  always  sat 
upon  the  front  seat  in  the  hall,  and  on  one  oc- 
casion even  informed  me  that  if  I  ever  lost 
the  thread  of  my  narrative  he  would  prompt 
me. 

But  after  the  first  year  I  often  traveled 
alone,  bumping  and  thumping  about  the  coun- 
try towns  in  stage  coaches  or  hired  livery 
teams,  or  traveling  hundreds  of  miles  in  trains. 
Of  course,  there  is  an  added  strain  to  traveling 
alone  without  sight.  People  are  always  very 
good  to  help  one,  but  there  is  always  the  anx- 
iety as  to  whether  some  one  will  turn  up  at 
just  the  moment  when  you  need  a  little  as- 
sistance. Now,  after  many  years  of  experi- 
ence, I  usually  depend  on  the  Western  Union 
or  the  Postal  Telegraph  boys.  As  soon  as  I 
reach  the  depot  in  the  city  where  I  am  to  lec- 
ture or  where  I  have  business  I  get  some  one 
to  show  me  the  telephone,  and  I  call  for  the 
office  and  have  one  of  these  trusty  little  fel- 
lows sent  to  my  assistance. 

Of  course,  in  a  large  city,  with  all  the  mod- 
ern complications  of  elevated  and  surface  cars, 


THE    LITERARY    STRUGGLE         103 

and  the  additional  peril  to  foot  passengers 
caused  by  the  advent  of  the  automobile  into 
modern  civilization,  one  has  to  look  out  for 
himself  to  a  large  degree.  Yet  I  have  had  a 
good  schooling  and  am  inured  to  hardship. 
Railroad  trains  and  trolley  cars,  congested 
streets,  and  the  roar  of  this  modern  bedlam 
which  we  call  the  people's  business  are  all  as 
familiar  to  me  as  my  own  quiet  study  at  home. 
So  on  my  lecture  trips  or  business  trips, 
whether  traveling  alone,  or  with  my  wife,  I 
always  arrive  at  my  destination  safely,  though 
often  with  tired,  aching  nerves,  to  which  sleep 
and  rest  come  only  too  slowly. 

I  began  seriously  assaulting  the  offices  of 
magazines  with  my  poems  in  1893,  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  hard  times  of  that  year.  If 
there  is  anything  under  heaven  that  might  be 
described  as  a  forlorn  hope,  it  would  be  mak- 
ing one's  living  out  of  poetry.  My  friend, 
Charles  Eliot  Norton,  than  whom  there  was 
no  better  critic,  told  me  twenty  years  ago,  that 
if  a  poet  the  equal  of  Bryant  should  arise  to- 
day, he  not  only  could  not  earn  his  salt,  but 


104       HITTING   THE    DARK   TRAIL 

his  work  would  actually  go  begging;  that  in 
this  material  hurrying  age,  the  poet  could  not 
even  get  a  hearing  for  his  poems,  much  less 
make  enough  money  from  them  to  pay  for  his 
postage  stamps.  He  said  that  the  poet  of 
to-day  who  depended  to  any  degree  upon  his 
work  for  a  livelihood  must  starve. 

This  was  what  Professor  Norton  told  me 
when  I  showed  him  some  of  my  early  poems, 
and  asked  him  what  chance  I  had  for  success  if 
I  tried  to  make  a  part  of  my  living  by  verse 
writing.  In  the  light  of  twenty  years  of  ex- 
perience, which  I  have  struggled  through  since, 
I  do  not  think  he  overstated  the  case.  There 
is  no  room  for  beauty  to-day  in  our  hustling, 
bustling  modern  civilization,  especially  in 
America.  It  is  the  commercial  age,  and  we  are 
the  most  commercial  of  all  the  people  on  God's 
footstool. 

With  this  encouragement  in  mind,  I  set 
about  the  task  of  winning  a  place  for  myself 
with  my  poems,  and  of  earning  some  of  my 
bread  and  butter  as  well.  How  I  ever  suc- 
ceeded is  almost  a  mystery  to  me  even  now. 


THE    LITERARY    STRUGGLE         105 

The  only  things  that  brought  me  through  were 
my  three  P's  and  that  bulldog  quality  which 
I  possess  of  never  being  beaten  as  long  as  I 
have  a  breath  of  life  left  in  my  body  with  which 
to  fight. 

Probably  no  American  poet  has  had  as  many 
poems  returned  as  I  have, — and  few  have  sold 
more  for  good  money. 

I  made  it  a  rule  for  years  never  to  allow  a 
manuscript  to  lie  over  night  on  my  desk. 
When  I  sent  out  a  manuscript  I  at  once 
planned  where  I  would  send  it  when  it  was 
returned,  for  its  return  I  took  as  a  matter  of 
course.  Like  a  lightning  juggler,  I  always 
flashed  the  manuscript  back  into  the  letter  box 
almost  before  my  secretary  had  read  the  re- 
jection slip.  I  eliminated  all  feeling  from  the 
matter,  and  tore  that  page  out  of  my  diction- 
ary containing  the  word  "failure,"  shut  my 
eyes  to  the  large  bills  each  month  for  stamps, 
and  fired  my  boomerangs  in  every  direction. 
There  is  hardly  a  magazine  office  or  a  weekly 
sanctum  in  this  country  into  which  my  shafts 
have  not  whizzed,  and  many  of  them  stuck 


106        HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

upon  the  pages  and  brought  me  back  good 
checks. 

Some  of  my  dismal  financial  failures  were 
my  most  brilliant  literary  successes,  all  of 
which  goes  to  prove  that  art  cannot  be  meas- 
ured in  dollars  and  cents,  and  that  the  artist 
who  struggles  hardest  for  the  best  things,  may 
often  receive  a  stone  in  place  of  bread. 

My  negro  dialect  poem,  "How  Massa 
Linkum  Came,"  was  refused  seventeen  times, 
and  in  disgust  I  finally  gave  it  to  the  Spring- 
field Republican.  As  soon  as  the  public  read 
the  poem  in  the  Republican  it  began  clamoring 
for  it,  so  that  many  American  newspapers 
copied  it,  and  it  has  been  recited  by  school 
children  and  elocutionists  ever  since.  Robert 
T.  Lincoln,  the  son  of  the  martyred  president, 
was  so  pleased  with  the  poem  that  he  wrote  me 
a  long  autographed  letter  expressing  his  ap- 
preciation. 

My  irregular  sonnet,  "The  Mountain  to  the 
Pine,"  was  sold  for  two  dollars,  but  was  after- 
ward widely  copied  and  translated  into  for- 
eign languages.  Mr.  Stedman  considered  this 


THE   LITERARY    STRUGGLE         107 

sonnet  good  enough  to  include  in  his  American 
Anthology.  As  I  have  already  said,  it  is  also 
a  great  favorite  with  my  friend,  Helen  Keller. 
Here  is  a  quatrain  which,  Helen  writes  me, 
has  encouraged  her  in  the  struggle  of  life.  It 
very  well  typifies  the  literary  struggle  as  I 
fought  it  out  during  those  first  strenuous  years. 

EROSION 

Even  the  little  waves  that  idly  dance 
Against  the  cliff,  will  crumble  it  to  sand; 
And  so  with  ceaseless  toil  the  slightest  hand 
May  wear  away  the  walls  of  circumstance. 

All  my  life  I  have  been  beating  with  little 
waves  against  the  dark  and  forbidding  walls 
of  circumstance.  If  in  the  rubbing  process 
they  have  worn  me  somewhat,  yet  I  have  worn 
my  way  through  them  to  light  and  happiness. 

Throughout  the  years  from  1891  to  1895, 
while  I  was  knocking  about  lecturing,  I  was 
steadily  adding  to  my  collection  of  verses,  and 
dreaming  of  the  day  when  I  should  have 
enough  for  a  volume.  Many  of  the  poems  that 
finally  appeared  in  my  first  volume  were  writ- 


108       HITTING   THE    DARK    TRAIL 

ten  under  peculiar  circumstances,  in  hotels  and 
on  trains,  in  rumbling  stage  coaches,  and  at 
country  farmhouses.  Sometimes  they  were 
composed  when  my  heart  was  beating  high  be- 
cause I  had  been  greeted  by  a  good  audience, 
and  then  the  lines  would  scintillate  and 
sparkle;  but  often  when  I  was  discouraged 
and  oppressed  by  the  endless  unequal  struggle 
my  best  thoughts  came.  Even  then  I  always 
sought  to  get  something  of  hope  and  cheer  into 
my  verses,  and  to  sound  that  bugle  call  to 
battle,  which  has  always  been  my  slogan. 

In  the  spring  of  1895  I  decided  that  I  had 
poems  enough  for  a  volume,  so  I  set  about  get- 
ting a  publisher,  but  was  met  with  this  aston- 
ishing proposition:  None  of  the  better-class 
publishers  in  the  great  cities  would  so  much  as 
look  at  a  volume  of  poems  unless  the  author 
put  up  the  entire  cost  of  publication  in  cold 
cash;  that  is,  if  the  work  was  that  of  a  new 
and  unknown  poet.  They  also  informed  me 
that  there  were  only  three  or  four  poets  of 
standing,  even,  whom  they  would  consider  un- 
less the  author  stood  behind  the  enterprise 


THE    LITERARY    STRUGGLE         109 

financially.  In  other  words,  I  might  take  all 
the  risk,  and  they  assured  me  that  the  risk  was 
great,  and  they  would  take  the  profit  if  there 
was  any,  which  would  be  doubtful. 

This  assurance  was  a  great  blow  to  my  enter- 
prise, but  it  did  not  discourage  me.  I  at  once 
set  about  putting  my  prospective  book  on  a 
paying  basis.  I  sent  out  several  hundred  cir- 
culars to  my  friends  and  acquaintances  describ- 
ing the  volume  that  I  proposed  to  publish  and 
asking  for  their  orders  in  advance.  This  move 
secured  me  a  hundred  and  fifty  subscribers, 
just  half  of  what  I  needed. 

I  had  a  good  many  friends  among  the  kind 
people  in  the  Hampshire  hills  where  I  was 
born  and  had  spent  my  childhood ;  and  some  of 
these  I  had  not  heard  from,  so  I  determined 
to  try  them  still  further.  I  hired  a  team  on  a 
hot  day  in  August,  and  a  boy  to  drive  it,  and 
started  out  as  a  sort  of  advance  book  agent  for 
my  own  wares.  I  did  not  urge  any  one  to  sub- 
scribe, but  I  put  the  matter  in  its  best  possible 
light.  From  dawn  until  dark  I  traveled,  see- 
ing scores  of  people  each  day.  The  first  boy 


lasted  just  four  days,  and  then  went  whimper- 
ing back  home,  saying  that  he  would  rather  dig 
potatoes,  or  saw  wood,  than  rush  up  and  down 
the  country  in  that  way.  During  the  next  ten 
days  I  wore  out  four  more  boys,  but  got  an 
additional  one  hundred  and  fifty  subscribers, 
and  the  financial  success  of  my  book  was  as- 
sured. 

Having  secured  subscribers  enough  to  make 
my  book  a  paying  enterprise,  why  not  publish 
it  myself?  Then  if  there  were  any  profits  I 
would  have  them  instead  of  sharing  them  with 
a  city  publisher.  With  this  idea  I  interviewed 
my  friend,  Charles  F.  Warner,  of  the  Pic- 
turesque Publishing  Company,  at  Northamp- 
ton, Mass.,  and  we  decided  that  I  should  pub- 
lish the  book  myself.  After  many  discourag- 
ing delays  by  the  printers  it  was  brought  out 
in  1895  in  time  for  the  Christmas  trade,  my 
contribution  to  the  Yule-tide. 

To  all  my  readers  who  remember  the  little 
volume  Pebbles  and  Shells  and  the  great  liter- 
ary success  it  scored,  this  sidelight  will  seem 
like  a  contradiction,  but  all  of  my  successes 


THE   LITERARY    STRUGGLE         111 

have  been  built  up  from  innumerable  little  fail- 
ures. I  have  never  found  anything  easy.  Life 
to  me  has  always  signified  struggle  and  tempo- 
rary disappointment,  with  success  at  the  end 
of  the  road. 

My  first  literary  venture  received  many  one 
and  two-column  notices  from  the  best  literary 
journals,  and  sold  the  entire  edition  of  twelve 
hundred  copies  in  a  few  months,  netting  me  a 
thousand  dollars.  I  dedicated  this  first  book 
to  my  mother,  who  had  done  so  much  to  en- 
courage and  help  me,  and  her  pleasure  at  this 
success  was  greater  even  than  my  own. 

But  I  kept  right  on  lecturing,  going  to  the 
larger  cities,  where  I  got  better  pay  and  more 
appreciation,  and  the  following  year  I  pub- 
lished Three  Little  Folks,  a  book  of  verses  for 
children.  It  netted  me  five  hundred  dollars. 
This  book  was  also  a  literary  success,  as  well 
as  a  financial  help. 

In  1897  I  published  Idyls  of  old  New  Eng- 
land; in  1898,  Songs  for  Columbia's  Heroes, 
a  volume  of  war  poems  concerning  the  Span- 
ish-American War;  and  in  1900  I  published 


HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

my  last  and  best  volume  of  poems,  The  Hope 
of  the  World. 

These  five  books  of  verse,  published  between 
1895  and  1900,  netted  me  three  thousand  dol- 
lars, and  with  the  lecturing  I  was  enabled  to 
do  gave  me  a  fair  income. 

In  1899,  my  dear  mother,  who  had  read  and 
planned  literary  dreams  with  me  for  so  long, 
died,  and  with  her  passing  the  desire  to  write 
verse  was  partly  eclipsed.  We  had  read  the 
classics  together  ever  since  I  was  a  child  and 
my  verses  had  meant  even  more  to  her  than  to 
myself,  so  with  my  poetic  inspiration  gone,  the 
fount  of  song  was  temporarily  checked,  and 
my  life  turned  into  another  channel. 

All  my  laurels  gained  as  a  poet  I  gladly 
share  with  my  dear  mother,  to  whom  I  wrote 
the  following  sonnet  after  her  burial : 

TIRED    HANDS 

Folded  they  lie,  upon  her  tranquil  breast, 
My  mother's  tired  hands,  their  labors  done, 
Knotted  and  scarred  in  battles  they  have  won, 
Worn  to  the  quick,  by  love's  unkind  behest. 
Pulseless  they  lie,  while  from  the  crimson  west 


THE    LITERARY    STRUGGLE         113 

A  flood  of  glory  from  the  setting  sun 
Falls  on  her  face;  I  hear  the  deep  "Well-done," 
God's  Angelus,  that  calls  her  soul  to  rest. 
Found  is  the  Holy  Grail  of  knightly  quest, 
Here  in  her  home,  where  such  brave  deeds  were  done 
As  knight  ne'er  saw,  since  chivalry  begun; 
She  suffered,  toiled,  and  died,  God  knows  the  rest, 
But  if  Christ's  crown  shines  not  above  her  cross, 
Then  all  is  loss,  immeasurable  loss. 

The  day  before  she  died  I  gave  a  lecture  to 
help  pay  her  doctor's  bill,  and  two  days  after 
she  was  laid  to  rest  I  lectured  again  to  help 
pay  her  funeral  expenses.  Such  is  the  stern, 
relentless  call  of  duty.  Our  loved  ones  may 
die  and  the  cold  earth  be  laid  above  them,  but 
there  is  no  rest  for  us.  Like  good  soldiers  we 
must  march  onward,  closing  up  the  ranks,  still 
smiling  and  laughing,  although  a  part  of  our 
hopes  and  our  hearts  are  in  the  new  grave. 


CHAPTER    VII 

WRITING  NATURE  BOOKS  WITH- 
OUT  EYES 

The  author  woos  and  wins  an  artist  friend  for  his  wife 
— The  struggle  to  maintain  a  home  upon  an  au- 
thor's income — Entrance  of  Master  Frisky  into  my 
life — I  write  my  first  nature  book — A  wonderful 
treasure  house  to  draw  upon — Compensation  for  the 
loss  of  eyesight — Teaching  boys  and  girls  the  beauty 
and  wonder  of  nature — The  writing  of  eighteen  na- 
ture books — Pilgrimages  of  children  to  my  home — 
Writing  about  big  game — My  scientific  method 
in  writing  a  nature  book — Studying  nature  as 
it  comes  to  my  very  door — Seeing  nature  by  proxy 
— The  Spring  fishing  fever — Pleasant  days  in  canoe 
and  camp — Friends  who  have  helped  me — My 
friends  among  nature  writers — Observing  nature 
merely  by  hearing. 

IN  the  Autumn  of  1899  I  was  married  to 
Miss  Bessie  W.  Bell,  a  Hadley  girl,  whom  I 
had  known  ever  since  my  coming  to  Hadley. 
We  had  been  engaged  for  five  years,  and  our 
marriage  had  been  postponed  several  times, 

114 


WRITING    BOOKS    WITHOUT    EYES     115 

owing  to  sickness  in  my  own  family,  and  other 
misfortunes  which  had  scattered  my  small 
savings. 

Miss  Bell  was  a  talented  artist,  having  stud- 
ied with  Bruce  Crane,  and  also  at  Pratt  Insti- 
tute in  Brooklyn.  We  were  both  interested  in 
the  out-of-doors  world,  and  together  loved 
truth  and  beauty  in  whatever  guise  it  came  to 
hand.  At  that  time  I  kept  a  horse  and  car- 
riage with  which  to  travel  about  the  country 
upon  my  lecture  trips.  We  had,  during  our 
courtship,  taken  nearly  all  the  fine  carriage 
drives  to  be  found  in  Western  Massachusetts. 
Often  these  drives  were  excursions  after  bits 
of  landscape  for  her  brush,  either  done  in  water 
color  or  oil.  So  we  often  stopped  for  hours  in 
some  pleasant  spot  in  the  woods ;  she  sketching 
and  I  writing  poems,  and  whistling  for  the 
birds  and  squirrels. 

I  admired  my  artist  friend  for  her  straight- 
forwardness and  love  of  beauty,  and  because 
she  did  not  discount  me  for  not  having  eye- 
sight. So  as  we  worked  along  parallel  lines, 
we  saw  much  of  each  other.  Acquaintance 


116        HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

ripened  into  friendship,  and  then  Cupid  got  in 
his  sly  work.  When  I  began  publishing  my 
first  books,  my  sweetheart's  clever  pencil 
drawings  found  their  way  quite  naturally  into 
them.  The  reader  will  find  illustrations  from 
her  pencil  and  brush  in  four  of  my  books  of 
poems. 

It  was  a  rather  sorrowful  start  that  we  had. 
My  mother  had  just  died  after  a  long  sickness, 
and  my  bank  account  was  again  a  minus  quan- 
tity, but  my  artist  took  the  risk  where  a  less 
courageous  girl  would  have  hesitated.  It  was 
largely  due  to  her  economy  and  ingenuity  that 
I  finally  purchased  our  pleasant  home  at  Had- 
ley,  Massachusetts,  and  equipped  it  with  all 
modern  conveniences.  So  while  my  mother 
first  inspired  me  to  write,  and  helped  me  with 
my  first  four  books,  my  wife  took  up  the  work 
where  she  laid  it  down,  and  has  been  a  very 
important  helper  ever  since. 

In  the  Summer  of  1897  I  had  brought  down 
from  the  Hampshire  Hills,  on  one  of  my  lec- 
ture trips,  a  little  fuzz}^  collie  pup.  I  had 
brought  the  loving  little  dog  home  with  me  to 


Master  Frisky,  the  hero  of  two  of  Mr.  Hawkes's  books 


WRITING   BOOKS    WITHOUT    EYES     117 

liven  up  our  house,  for  at  the  time  we  were 
struggling  with  a  great  bereavement,  my  dear 
sister  Alice,  the  playmate  of  my  youth,  having 
died  the  Spring  before.  Master  Frisky,  for 
that  was  what  I  called  the  dog,  because  of  his 
frolicsome  nature,  became  a  very  important 
member  of  the  household. 

While  my  mother  had  been  ill  two  years  later 
I  had  amused  the  family  by  telling  them  some 
most  improbable  humorous  stories,  of  which 
Master  Frisky  was  the  hero,  and  this  finally 
led  to  the  writing  of  my  first  volume  of  prose, 
a  dog  story  called  Master  Frisky.  This  was 
published  in  1902,  and  was  both  a  literary  and 
financial  success. 

The  writing  of  this  book  called  my  attention 
to  the  great  vogue  of  nature  books  at  the  time, 
and  I  read  many  of  them  with  delight.  I  did 
not  have  to  read  far  to  discover  that  my  own 
brain  was  teeming  with  just  such  stories  of 
field  and  forest.  Had  I  not  tramped  the  woods 
for  seven  or  eight  years,  in  all  seasons  ?  Had  I 
not  hunted  nearly  all  species  of  game  birds  to 
be  found  in  New  England,  not  to  mention 


118       HITTING   THE    DARK    TRAIL 

foxes,  squirrels,  rabbits,  and  raccoons?  Did 
I  not  know  the  habitats  of  all  the  denizens  of 
the  New  England  forest?  Moreover,  from 
reading  the  current  nature  books,  it  seemed  to 
me  that  these  writers  did  not  love  or  appreciate 
nature  any  more  sincerely  than  I  did.  If  only 
I  could  get  my  boyhood  experiences  into  print ! 

Then  little  by  little  the  meaning  of  all  my 
years  of  blindness  was  made  plain  to  me.  If  I 
had  always  retained  my  sight,  I  would  have 
gone  on  for  the  rest  of  my  life  seeing  things, 
learning  of  nature  from  reading  her  great 
book,  without  ever  stopping  to  think  what  the 
things  that  I  saw  meant.  I  must  have  gone  on 
hunting  and  trapping,  fishing  and  camping, 
without  ever  having  gathered  together  or  ar- 
ranged my  knowledge. 

This  then  was  my  way  out.  I  had  lost  my 
eyesight  in  the  deep  woods,  with  a  gun  in  my 
hand,  in  the  very  hour  of  despoiling  nature.  I 
would  turn  about  and  tell  the  American  boys 
and  girls  all  these  intensely  interesting  things 
that  I  had  discovered  in  conjunction  with  other 
nature  students.  But  I  would  go  further  than 


WRITING   BOOKS    WITHOUT    EYES     119 

that.  I  would  show  them  the  life  of  field  and 
forest  from  the  side  of  the  hunted.  I  would 
try  and  get  the  attitude  of  all  my  little  furred 
and  feathered  friends,  and  put  it  into  books. 
I  would  teach  children,  not  only  to  know  and 
love  the  birds  and  squirrels,  but  also  to  care 
for  them,  and  to  help  them  in  their  unequal 
struggle ;  in  the  desperate  battle  for  existence 
that  they  daily  wage. 

So  I  wrote  my  first  nature  book,  Little  For- 
esters, drawing  almost  entirely  upon  my  boy- 
hood experiences  for  its  chapters.  To  my 
great  delight,  Mr.  Charles  Copeland,  a  nature 
artist  whom  I  greatly  admired,  was  chosen  for 
the  illustrator,  and  since  then  he  has  illustrated 
over  a  dozen  books  for  me,  and  helped  my  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  readers  to  understand 
the  text,  as  few  nature  illustrators  are  able  to 
do.  We  have  worked  together  like  the  good 
friends  we  are,  and  given  both  pleasure  and  in- 
formation to  a  very  wide  circle  of  boys  and 
girls,  both  in  this  country  and  abroad,  where 
my  nature  books  are  widely  read. 

Merely  from  my  boyhood  experiences,  from 


120        HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

the  things  that  I  had  seen  with  my  own  wide- 
open  keen  blue  eyes,  I  wrote  eight  nature 
books,  all  of  which  took  the  story  form,  to  in- 
struct and  entertain  the  mind  of  youth.  There 
are  few  Boy  Scouts  or  Boy  Campers  in  Amer- 
ica who  have  not  read  these  books,  and  they  are 
also  used  in  the  public  schools  both  in  this  coun- 
try and  in  England  as  supplementary  readers. 
In  1907  The  Teachers'  Reading  Circle  of  the 
State  of  Illinois  put  my  book  Shaggycoat,  the 
story  of  the  beaver,  upon  their  accepted  list 
for  use  in  that  large  state,  and  since  that  year 
the  use  of  these  books  for  school  purposes  in 
the  United  States  has  steadily  increased. 

From  my  own  part  of  Massachusetts  school 
children  make  annual  pilgrimages  to  my  house 
by  the  hundreds.  When  I  am  informed  that 
such  a  delegation  is  coming,  I  plaster  the  walls 
of  several  rooms  with  the  original  drawings 
from  which  my  books  have  been  illustrated, 
and  Mrs.  Hawkes  and  I  give  up  the  day  to  the 
little  people,  whose  interest  and  gratitude  are 
ample  reward  for  the  loss  of  a  day's  time. 

But  this  New  England  field  of  activity  was 


WRITING    BOOKS    WITHOUT    EYES     121 

not  large  enough  for  me  and  I  soon  widened  it. 
It  was  all  very  well  to  write  of  the  small  crea- 
tures that  I  had  known  so  intimately  in  my 
boyhood,  but  I  was  also  deeply  interested  in 
big  game.  The  haunts  and  the  habits  of  the 
moose,  the  bear,  the  wolf,  the  bison,  and  all  the 
other  species  of  big  game  that  have  made  this 
country  famous,  appealed  to  my  imagination 
most  vividly. 

My  father,  and  my  uncle  Mr.  William 
Hawkes,  had  gone  west  in  the  early  fifties, 
when  things  were  doing  for  sportsmen  in  the 
middle  west.  For  hours  at  a  time,  I  had  sat 
breathlessly  at  my  father's  knees,  and  listened 
to  thrilling  stories  of  wolf  coursing.  He  had 
told  of  running  down  the  great  gray  timber 
wolf  on  horseback,  galloping  madly  across  the 
open  prairie,  which  was  honeycombed  with 
prairie-dog  holes,  where  a  misstep  of  the  madly 
galloping  horse  would  break  a  man's  neck;  of 
prairie  chicken  and  wild  turkey  shooting,  and 
of  hunting  the  great  herds  of  buffalo  in  Ne- 
braska upon  horseback.  These  stories  had 
whetted  my  imagination  for  more,  and  I  had 


HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

read  of  hunting  trips  and  camping  on  the  great 
plains  and  in  the  Rockies  until  all  these  scenes 
were  as  familiar  to  me  as  were  the  woods  of 
my  own  loved  New  England. 

So  I  soon  turned  my  attention  to  writing  of 
the  habits  and  habitats  of  big  game;  not  as  a 
museum  naturalist,  who  dreams  over  his  books 
and  specimens,  and  then  puts  down  cold  tabu- 
lated facts,  but  as  a  participant  in  the  wild 
rough  life,  one  who  lived  on  the  trail  and  lived 
in  the  scenes  he  described.  To  accomplish  this 
firsthand  knowledge,  I  summoned  to  my  aid 
many  friends  who  had  seen  much  of  wild  life, 
—trappers,  guides,  and  frontiersmen, — men 
with  the  bark  on,  who  knew  nature  at  first 
hand. 

I  supplemented  their  knowledge  with  all  I 
could  learn  from  books.  For  years  I  have 
made  it  a  rule  to  read  everything  of  value  that 
has  ever  been  written  upon  the  subject  about 
which  I  am  writing.  Thus,  in  preparing  to 
write  my  story  of  the  beaver,  Shaggycoat,  I 
worked  gathering  facts  for  nearly  five  years 
before  putting  pen  to  paper.  In  my  seven 


WRITING    BOOKS    WITHOUT    EYES     123 

animal  biography  books,  beginning  with 
Shaggy  coat  and  ending  with  the  Story  of  the 
Reindeer,  not  yet  published,  I  have  aimed  to 
include  every  known  fact  about  each  of  the 
animals  in  question,  and  to  include  nothing 
but  facts. 

To  keep  all  unauthenticated  or  improbable 
statements  about  animals  out  of  my  books  has 
been  a  task  that  has  kept  my  nerves  on  edge 
for  the  past  eight  or  ten  years,  as  this  kind  of 
writing  has  been  constantly  under  attack,  by 
Uncle  John  Burroughs,  and  Colonel  Roose- 
velt, as  well  as  dozens  of  other  well-known 
writers.  But  I  have  done  my  work  so  care- 
fully that  never  during  that  time  have  any  of 
my  books  been  attacked  for  untruthfulness. 
I  consider  this  one  of  the  most  important  of 
my  achievements,  as  most  of  the  best  animal 
story  writers  have  been  under  fire  of  a  ques- 
tionable sort. 

Yet  my  books  are  not  perfect  in  that  par- 
ticular, and  I  doubt  if  an  entirely  accurate 
book  of  natural  history  was  ever  written.  The 
subject  is  so  multifarious,  and  the  conditions 


124       HITTING   THE    DARK   TRAIL 

under  which  the  birds  and  animals  live  are  so 
varied,  that  these  differing  conditions  are 
bound  to  breed  irregularities,  so  there  can  be 
no  hard  and  fast  rules. 

To  show  how  painstakingly  my  books  are 
worked  out  I  merely  need  to  mention  this  fact : 
When  I  begin  a  book  that  deals  with  an  animal 
living  in  a  territory  that  I  am  not  wholly  fa- 
miliar with,  I  go  to  the  nearest  library  and 
come  home  literally  loaded  with  books  and 
maps  of  the  country.  First  I  master  the  to- 
pography of  the  region  until  I  know  all  the 
rivers  and  mountain  ranges,  and  the  general 
character  of  the  country.  Then  I  take  up  its 
flora  and  study  that  until  I  know  all  the  plants 
and  trees,  and  their  relation  to  the  landscape. 
Finally  I  attack  the  subject  of  the  country's 
fauna,  and  make  myself  acquainted  with  all 
forms  of  life  to  be  found  in  this  land.  I  lit- 
erally live  in  that  country,  through  my  books 
and  maps,  provided  I  am  not  able  to  visit  it, 
until  I  have  written  the  book.  Likewise  I  take 
on  the  character  of  the  animal  I  am  writing 
about.  My  friends  might  tell  you  that  I  was 


The   eternal   struggle 


WRITING    BOOKS    WITHOUT    EYES     125 

a  bear  for  a  whole  year,  during  which  time  I 
was  writing  of  Ursus. 

Patient,  painstaking,  heartbreaking  toil  I 
do  not  mind  if  I  can  get  accuracy,  and  make 
the  subject  live.  The  one  thing  that  I  want  is 
to  make  my  animal  live  upon  the  pages,  and 
to  have  the  reader  become  nearly  as  familiar 
with  him  as  he  is  with  his  best  friend.  My 
theory  in  regard  to  this  whole  matter  is,  that 
all  things  belong  to  the  man  with  imagination 
and  courage  enough  to  reach  out  and  take 
them. 

Living  as  I  do  in  a  country  village,  with  the 
world  of  nature  all  about  me,  I  am  still  able  to 
do  much  very  effective  nature  study,  and  ga- 
ther a  few  interesting  facts  each  year.  My 
home  faces  upon  the  broadest  and  most  beau- 
tiful street  in  the  world,  wrhich  is  flanked  by 
four  rows  of  enormous  elms.  From  that  happy 
day  in  March  when  the  first  bluebird  perches 
upon  the  tiptop  branch  of  one  of  these  trees, 
and  greets  me  with  his  sweet  little  "Cheerily," 
until  he  flies  away  in  the  Autumn,  one  of  the 
last  of  the  song  birds  to  leave,  this  wonderful 


126        HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

street  is  an  aviary  of  no  mean  order.  I  am 
able  each  year  without  going  out  of  my  street 
to  identify  over  fifty  species  of  birds.  At  the 
back  of  my  house  is  a  small  orchard  which  is 
a  favorite  nesting  place  of  the  birds,  and  here 
I  discover  a  few  more  species  that  do  not  ordi- 
narily frequent  the  street. 

In  company  with  some  one  who  has  good 
eyes,  with  an  opera  glass  and  a  bird  book,  I 
pass  many  happy  hours  while  the  silver-footed 
moments  of  Summertime  go  by.  The  one  trou- 
ble that  I  experience  in  this  study  is  that  dif- 
ferent people  see  so  differently,  and  that  many 
people  do  not  observe  at  all.  This  is  true  even 
of  color,  and  I  cannot  always  be  sure  that  any 
two  people  are  describing  the  same  color  or 
marking  in  the  same  terms.  But  I  was  fairly 
well  grounded  in  bird  lore  before  I  lost  my 
sight,  so  I  am  able  to  supplement  my  friends 
in  different  observations,  with  accurate  knowl- 
edge of  the  particular  bird  that  we  are  after. 

Upon  my  fishing  trips  on  the  lakes  and  riv- 
ers in  this  vicinity  I  am  likewise  enabled  to  do 
some  very  interesting  nature  study,  and  the 


WRITING    BOOKS    WITHOUT    EYES     127 

men  who  accompany  me  on  these  trips  are  good 
help,  as  most  of  them  are  familiar  with  the  out- 
of-doors,  and  know  a  blue  heron  from  a  blue- 
jay  when  they  see  it.  It  is  with  such  men  that 
I  delight  to  train. 

Mr.  Charles  Hallock,  the  founder  of  Forest 
and  Stream,  who  has  often  been  called  the  dean 
of  American  sportsmen  because  he  opened  up 
so  much  of  the  new  hunting  and  fishing  country 
in  both  the  United  States  and  Canada,  has 
been  a  great  help  to  me.  From  the  very  first 
he  was  interested  in  my  books.  Many  abstruse 
nature  problems  I  have  referred  to  him,  and 
have  always  been  sure  of  his  accurate  knowl- 
edge. 

My  uncle,  William  S.  Hawkes,  who  went 
wrest  in  the  early  fifties  with  my  father,  was 
for  several  years  my  amanuensis,  and  his  ex- 
perience in  the  west  when  that  country  was 
raw  and  wild  has  given  me  much  material  for 
books. 

Still  another  good  friend  was  Mrs.  E.  J. 
Aldrich,  one  of  my  neighbors.  Mrs.  Aldrich 
had  been  a  taxidermist  for  many  years,  and 


128        HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

possessed  a  large  collection  of  mounted  speci- 
mens of  both  song  and  game  birds  from  all 
parts  of  the  country.  Many  a  pleasant  half 
day  we  spent  together  going  over  her  collec- 
tion, and  making  notes  of  measurements  and 
markings,  and  comparing  species.  This  friend 
also  did  much  of  my  proof  reading,  and  was 
the  best  speller  who  ever  corrected  proof 
for  me. 

My  brave  little  mother-in-law,  Mrs.  S.  R. 
Bell,  must  also  not  be  forgotten,  for  she  did 
much  of  my  reading,  on  both  proof  and  manu- 
script. Often  she  took  the  time,  when  her  own 
arduous  work  pressed,  and  was  an  enthusiastic 
helper. 

Mrs.  Bell  and  Mrs.  Aldrich  were  women  of 
culture,  being  graduates  of  Mount  Holyoke 
college,  and  most  excellent  help.  Both  of  these 
good  friends,  whom  I  lost  by  death  in  the  same 
year,  did  much  to  take  the  place  of  my  dear 
mother,  who  had  been  my  mainstay  for  so 
many  years. 

I  have  many  friends  among  the  nature  writ- 
ers who  have  been  kind  enough  to  say  pleasant 


WRITING    BOOKS    WITHOUT    EYES     129 

things  about  my  books.  Among  these  are  Er- 
nest Thompson  Seton,  Dallas  Lore  Sharp, 
William  J.  Long,  and  Gene  Stratton-Porter. 
Mrs.  Porter  writes  that  she  considers  my  books 
unique  among  the  nature  writing  done  in  this 
country,  and  that  my  animal  biographies  are 
the  best  things  of  their  kind  that  she  knows  of. 
As  Mrs.  Porter  is  a  trained  naturalist, — the 
Bird  Woman  in  her  novels, — I  consider  com- 
pliments from  her  valuable  and  hard  to  obtain. 
It  would  surprise  one  of  the  uninitiated  to 
know  how  much  I  can  observe  of  the  out-of- 
doors,  either  in  field  or  forest,  or  on  lakes  and 
streams,  wholly  by  myself  without  the  aid  of 
eyes.  My  hearing  for  the  slight  sounds  of 
nature  is  so  keen,  and  my  senses  are  so  quick 
to  detect  new  clues  either  by  sound  or  scent, 
that  I  am  just  as  apt  to  discover  the  new  and 
wonderful  things  as  are  my  seeing  friends  who 
accompany  me.  In  tHe  Spring  I  hear  more 
wild  geese  go  over  than  does  any  one  else  in 
the  vicinity,  because  my  ears  are  unconsciously 
keyed  to  catch  their  stirring  water  slogan.  To 
the  trained  ear  every  rustle  and  every  snap- 


130        HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

ping  twig  in  the  forest  means  something,  and 
all  these  slight  sounds  tell  their  own  story. 

I  would  not  need  to  ask  any  one  to  identify 
many  of  these  sounds  for  me.  The  steady  trot, 
trot,  trot,  of  a  fox  is  no  more  like  the  uneven 
hopping  of  a  rabbit,  than  the  galloping  of  a 
horse  is  like  his  trot.  A  bird  and  squirrel  never 
rustle  the  leaves  of  a  tree  in  the  same  way. 
The  scratching  of  small  squirrel  feet  down  the 
bark  of  a  tree  is  as  unlike  the  similar  slight 
sound  made  by  a  woodpecker  traveling  up  the 
bark  as  can  be  imagined. 

The  bird  language  also  I  probably  under- 
stand much  better  than  a  man  with  sight  ever 
could,  for  all  the  little  intonations  are  so  clear 
to  me.  Happiness,  fear  and  alarm,  querulous- 
ness,  good  spirits  or  pain,  all  are  conveyed  by 
my  little  friends  in  a  language  as  plain  as  the 
spoken  word.  Only  it  takes  the  ear  to  hear, 
and  the  heart  to  understand  these  things. 

My  nature  books  give  me  joy  above  every- 
thing else.  Into  them  has  gone  the  best  there 
is  in  me,  so  is  it  any  wonder  that  I  love  them 
as  my  own  flesh  and  blood  ? 


CHAPTER    VIII 
PASTIMES    AND   RECREATIONS 

Fisherman's  luck,  and  a  fisherman's  consolation — Good 
times  at  Three  Lakes — Furred  and  feathered  friends 
about  Three  Lakes — Daybreak  at  the  shack — Nor- 
wottuck  and  the  Ox-bow — The  first  appearance  of 
Judge  Irwin's  automobile — The  true  spirit  of  the 
Fan — My  methods  of  watching  a  game  of  baseball — 
My  friend  the  Ump,  and  the  home  team — Yelling 
with  the  crowd — Tired  yet  happy  at  the  close  of  the 
game — Football  by  telephone  and  telegraph — Get- 
ting early  election  returns  by  wire — The  Northamp- 
ton Municipal  theater,  and  Smith  College  Concert 
course — Indoor  games  and  recreations — Club  life; 
being  a  good  mixer — Make  friends  and  be  a  friend. 

I  HAVE  always  made  it  a  rule  to  mix  as  much 
sport  and  recreation  as  possible  with  my  ardu- 
ous literary  work.  All  work  and  no  play 
makes  Jack  a  dull  boy ;  besides,  I  truly  believe 
that  Jack  will  do  more  and  better  work  if  he 
lets  up  for  half  a  day  occasionally  and  gives 
his  tired  nerves  a  rest.  So  each  season  I  look 

131 


HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

forward  eagerly  to  whatever  it  affords  of  pas- 
time and  diversion. 

In  the  early  Spring,  about  April  15th,  I  get 
the  fishing  fever.  Then  all  my  fishing  tackle 
has  to  be  looked  up  and  gone  over  in  anticipa- 
tion of  the  first  day's  fishing.  Here  in  Massa- 
chusetts my  friends  are  all  out  on  April  15th 
whipping  the  trout  brooks,  but  I  do  not  go  the 
first  day,  because  many  years  of  experience 
have  taught  me  that  this  day  is  full  of  disap- 
pointment. Besides,  it  is  much  too  cold  for 
me  to  want  to  fish  then.  Not  that  I  mind  the 
cold  weather,  but  trout  fishing  to  me  means  a 
great  deal  that  one  cannot  get  on  the  fifteenth. 
It  means  warm  sunbeams,  and  balmy  winds, 
in  which  I  luxuriate ;  bird  songs,  and  fragrance, 
and  sweet  communion  with  nature. 

I  am  never  disappointed  at  an  empty  fish 
basket,  and  I  very  rarely  come  home  empty 
handed;  but  I  would  be  disappointed  to  come 
home  empty  hearted.  If  I  am  to  enjoy  my 
fishing,  I  must  commune  with  the  robin  and 
the  bluebird,  the  grackles  and  the  song  spar- 
rows ;  I  must  hear  the  meadow  larks  whistling 


PASTIMES    AND    RECREATIONS     133 

their  shrill  "Spring  o'  the  Year,  Spring  o' 
the  Year,"  while  I  fish  at  the  deep  pools  in  the 
meadow. 

Of  course,  I  cannot  knock  about  along  the 
trout  streams  as  I  used  to  when  a  boy,  but 
can  only  fish  the  deep  holes,  where  the  fishing 
is  open,  and  the  walking  smooth.  But  there 
is  so  much  doing  in  the  world  about  me,  and  I 
drink  such  deep  draughts  of  nature's  wine,  that 
I  do  not  mind  small  annoyances. 

About  the  middle  of  May,  when  the  water  is 
warm  enough  for  the  fish  to  bite  in  the  lakes 
and  ponds,  I  do  some  fishing  that  is  more 
within  my  limited  range  of  activity;  for  I  can 
catch  as  many  fish  from  a  boat  or  canoe,  or 
from  the  shore,  as  anyone  else.  I  usually  make 
a  trip  early  in  the  season  to  a  fishing  ground 
that  I  call  Three  Lakes.  These  three  beauti- 
ful woodland  lakes  are  partly  surrounded  by 
forest,  and  are  connected  by  narrow  channels. 
Our  cottage  or  hunting  shack  is  located  near 
the  water,  and  all  night  long  one  can  hear  the 
deep  booming  of  the  great  bass  bullfrogs,  in- 
termingled with  the  voices  of  the  peepers  and 


134        HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

the  croakers, — the  frog  orchestra  of  Three 
Lakes. 

For  years  the  crows  have  built  their  nest  in 
a  tall  pine  that  stands  by  the  lodge,  and  in  the 
night  one  often  hears  the  startled  squawks  of 
young  crows  as  they  cry  out  in  troubled 
dreams.  From  up  the  road  comes  the  mourn- 
ful refrain  of  a  whippoorwill  who  has  made 
this  country  his  headquarters  for  several  sea- 
sons. Altogether,  it  is  a  treezy,  breezy,  fra- 
grant, pungent  spot,  distilling  that  aroma  of 
the  forest  which  spells  sweet,  deep  sleep. 

About  half-past  four  in  the  morning  the  first 
rays  of  the  sun  gild  the  tops  of  the  distant 
trees,  and  after  greeting  the  coming  of  the 
day-god  with  glad  song  the  birds  all  fly  away 
to  get  their  breakfast.  Then  some  one  in  our 
party  arouses  the  rest  with  a  wild  western  yell, 
and  we  all  tumble  out  and  hurry  on  our  clothes. 
Breakfast  is  prepared  quickly  over  a  little 
charcoal  camp  cooker,  and  by  half-past  five  we 
are  on  the  lake  ready  for  the  day's  fishing. 

Fishing  upon  these  lakes  is  always  attended 
with  much  interest  that  does  not  pertain  purely 


PASTIMES    AND    RECREATIONS     135 

to  the  sport,  but  to  the  things  we  may  discover 
as  the  hours  slip  happily  by.  Maybe  a  great 
blue  heron  wings  by;  or  perhaps  it  is  a  fish- 
hawk,  uttering  his  cheerful  fisherman's  greet- 
ing ;  or  it  may  be  nothing  more  than  mud  hens, 
or  sandpipers,  or  a  score  of  song  birds  that 
fairly  swarm  among  the  bushes  along  the  edge 
of  the  lake;  but  certainly  it  is  a  beautiful  spot 
where  one  may  forget  care  and  fret,  slough  off 
weariness  of  soul,  put  on  a  good  tan,  and  de- 
velop a  keen  appetite.  If  I  had  a  deed  of 
these  three  woodland  lakes,  and  the  forest 
about  them,  I  could  not  enjoy  them  more,  for 
they  are  mine  while  I  live  upon  them. 

But  I  do  not  need  to  go  so  far  afield  for  good 
fishing  and  pleasant  boating,  for  the  street 
upon  which  I  live  runs  at  either  end  to  the 
Connecticut  River.  This  quaint  old  street 
rests  across  one  of  the  bends  in  the  Connecticut 
known  as  the  Ox-bow.  So  I  have  merely  to 
push  my  boat  on  wheels  to  the  head  of  the 
street,  and  then  launch  it,  and  I  am  on  one  of 
the  most  beautiful  rivers  that  ever  flowed  in  a 
background  of  meadow  and  mountains,  a  scene 


136       HITTING   THE    DARK    TRAIL 

such  as  the  Old  World,  with  all  its  historical 
association  and  literary  praise,  cannot  equal. 

We  at  once  push  our  fifteen-foot  St.  Law- 
rence River  boat,  built  of  cedar,  and  more 
treacherous  even  than  a  canoe,  to  the  further 
side  of  the  river,  and  when  about  fifty  feet 
from  the  bank  turn  her  head  down  stream  and 
float.  An  occasional  push  from  my  friend's 
paddle  keeps  her  from  drifting  too  near  shore, 
and  thus  we  drift  for  the  entire  length  of  the 
Ox-bow,  the  boat  traveling  perhaps  three  miles 
an  hour,  fast  enough  for  trolling. 

I  sit  in  the  stern  of  the  boat,  with  one  troll- 
ing line  fastened  to  my  wrist,  and  another  on  a 
rod,  while  my  friend  holds  his  line  in  his  teeth ; 
or  perhaps  he  just  smokes  and  watches  the 
beautiful  scene  slip  by.  Onward  we  glide 
through  the  wonderful  green  meadows,  under 
the  great  elms  that  fringe  the  bank,  and  the 
three  bridges,  and  so  on,  until  after  two  hours 
we  are  back  at  the  foot  of  my  street,  only  a 
mile  from  where  we  started  out,  but  having 
covered  seven  miles  of  beautiful  river  to  make 
the  distance.  This  trip  is  always  enough  to 


PASTIMES   AND    RECREATIONS      137 

make  one  day  very  happy,  and  to  offset  sev- 
eral days  of  hard  work. 

Fishing  is  not  the  only  outdoor  sport  that 
the  Spring  months  bring  to  me,  for  as  soon  as 
the  baseball  season  opens  I  become  deeply  in- 
terested in  the  national  game.  I  have  followed 
baseball  closely  ever  since  the  days  of  Clark- 
son  and  Kelly,  Boston's  twenty-thousand-dol- 
lar battery.  I  became  interested  in  the  Bean 
Eaters  many  years  ago  when  I  was  a  student 
at  Perkins  Institute  and  have  followed  up  the 
sport  ever  since. 

About  the  middle  of  April  the  college  sea- 
son, as  well  as  that  in  the  big  leagues,  begins, 
and  then  the  newspapers  hold  a  new  interest 
for  me ;  but  it  is  not  until  the  local  league  opens 
at  Northampton,  Massachusetts,  that  I  really 
get  into  the  game. 

My  friend,  Judge  Richard  W.  Irwin  of 
Northampton,  usually  comes  over  in  his  large 
automobile  and  gets  me  for  the  first  game. 
The  Judge  is  as  much  interested  in  the  game 
as  any  boy,  and  is  a  jolly  good  companion  be- 
sides. If  he  is  not  on  hand  for  the  first  game 


188        HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

I  jump  upon  the  automobile  truck  of  a  farmer 
neighbor  and  ride  over  with  him. 

It  must  not  be  imagined  that  I  only  take  a 
partial  interest  in  the  game  and  am  a  sort  of 
outsider,  for  there  is  no  one  in  the  grandstand 
or  on  the  bleachers  who  follows  the  game  more 
closely,  or  with  more  interest  than  I  do.  My 
knowledge  of  what  is  going  forward  on  the 
diamond  is  so  accurate  that  I  can  report  a 
game  for  a  newspaper,  and  have  written  a  good 
deal  about  the  national  game  first  and  last, 
these  articles  being  very  popular. 

We  will  suppose,  in  order  to  show  how  I 
follow  the  game,  that  we  are  sitting  in  the 
grandstand  immediately  behind  the  home  plate. 
In  that  case  the  diamond  and  the  field  are  a 
geometrical  figure  immediately  in  front  of  me. 
The  player  nearest  to  me,  and  immediately  in 
front,  is  the  catcher.  Then  farther  on,  in  the 
middle  of  the  diamond,  though  still  in  line,  is 
the  pitcher;  still  farther  away  is  the  second 
baseman,  and  away  beyond  him  the  center 
fielder.  To  my  right  is  the  first  baseman,  and 
still  farther  away,  but  nearly  in  line  with  him, 


PASTIMES    AND    RECREATIONS      139 

is  the  right  fielder.  To  my  left  are  the  short- 
stop and  the  third  baseman,  and  farther  away 
is  the  left  fielder.  This  is  the  picture  that  I 
always  have  in  mind  when  play  is  called. 

When  the  umpire  cries  "Play  ball,"  my 
nerves  are  strung  up  to  the  highest  pitch. 

"Ball,"  cries  the  umpire,  and  I  hear  the  ball 
fall  with  a  slight  spat  into  the  catcher's  mitt. 
By  the  slight  sound  that  it  made  I  know  that 
the  ball  pitched  was  a  drop,  for  the  force  had 
nearly  all  gone  out  of  it. 

"Ball,"  cries  the  umpire  again.  But  this 
ball  strikes  the  catcher's  mitt  with  a  vicious 
spat,  so  it  was  not  a  drop.  Probably  it  was 
an  out,  or  perhaps  it  was  too  high.  Anyway 
it  was  a  ball,  and  what  sort  of  one  does  not 
much  matter. 

"Strike,"  calls  the  umpire.  Now  the  ques- 
tion arises  in  my  mind :  did  the  batter  swing  at 
the  ball,  or  was  the  strike  called  on  him?  But 
a  spectator  near  by  sets  me  right  by  observing: 
"He  ought  to  have  offered  at  that  one,"  so  I 
know  it  was  called. 

"Strike,"  again  calls  the  umpire,  and  again 


140       HITTING   THE    DARK   TRAIL 

I  am  puzzled  as  to  whether  the  strike  was 
called  or  the  batsman  offered. 

"Gee!"  cries  a  small  boy  near  me.  "If  he 
had  hit  that  one  it  would  have  gone  over  the 
fence."  So  I  know  he  offered  at  it  viciously. 

Again  the  pitcher  winds  up  and  there  is  a 
loud  crack  from  the  bat.  There  is  a  rather 
long  minute  of  suspense,  and  then  I  hear  the 
ball  strike  in  the  shortstop's  mitt.  It  was  a 
pop  fly,  which  went  rather  high,  and  that  was 
why  I  waited  so  long  to  hear  the  catch.  If  the 
sound  had  come  quickly  I  would  have  known 
by  the  same  reasoning  that  it  was  a  hot  drive, 
going  low  to  the  ground,  and  that  the  short- 
stop stabbed  it,  as  they  say. 

Another  batsman  steps  to  the  plate  and  hits 
the  first  ball  pitched,  sharply.  I  hear  the  ball 
strike  the  shortstop's  mitt  again,  and  a  second 
later  it  resounds  in  the  mitt  of  the  first  base- 
man over  at  my  right.  It  was  a  ground  ball, 
and  was  fielded  nicely  and  thrown  accurately, 
and  the  umpire  cries,  "Out." 

Often  when  the  decision  is  close  I  listen  in- 
tently to  see  whether  the  feet  of  the  base  run- 


PASTIMES    AND    RECREATIONS      141 

ner  strike  the  base  or  the  ball  the  baseman's 
mitt  first.  If  the  base  runner  makes  first  and 
I  hear  soon  after  the  ball  spat  in  the  baseman's 
mitt  I  know  the  pitcher  is  throwing  to  first  to 
catch  him.  As  soon  as  a  runner  gets  upon  the 
base  the  coaching  gives  me  a  clue  each  time  as 
to  what  happens  on  the  base.  Each  time  the 
coach  cries  sharply,  "Look  out!"  I  imagine 
the  runner  pitching  for  the  bag,  and  I  hear  the 
ball  spat  in  the  baseman's  mitt,  telling  of  the 
throw.  The  same  rules  apply  to  second  base, 
and  also  to  third.  To  any  one  familiar  with 
the  game,  every  word  of  the  coach  means  a  cor- 
responding motion  on  the  field. 

When  a  batted  ball  goes  away  out  into  the 
field  I  have  to  listen  sharply  to  hear  the  fielder 
catch  it,  but  my  ear  is  so  trained  with  attend- 
ing many  hundreds  of  games,  that  I  can  usu- 
ally hear  the  ball  fall  to  the  ground  if  it  is 
muffed.  If  I  did  not,  the  fate  of  the  base  run- 
ner would  give  me  the  necessary  clue.  Very 
rarely,  if  I  am  paying  attention,  am  I  obliged 
to  ask  my  companion  where  the  ball  went  and 
what  the  play  was.  Grounders  I  usually  hear 


HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

skimming  along  the  diamond,  and  very  high 
flies  I  recognize  by  the  time  the  ball  stays  in 
the  air. 

Thus  the  play  goes  on  for  nine  exciting  in- 
nings, and  I  am  sure  there  is  no  one  on  the 
grounds  more  excited  or  interested  than  my- 
self. 

Two  or  three  times  I  have  been  hit  by  a 
batted  or  thrown  ball  while  sitting  in  the 
bleachers,  or  in  an  automobile,  but  have  always 
come  off  with  a  whole  skin.  Perhaps  the  clos- 
est call  that  I  have  had  to  serious  injury  oc- 
curred one  day  when  a  small  boy,  who  was 
sitting  between  my  knees,  got  a  very  hard  drive 
of  a  foul  which  came  into  the  bleachers.  It 
came  like  a  cannon  ball,  and  struck  the  little 
chap  in  the  cheek,  but  he  was  good  grit,  and 
was  all  right  after  a  few  minutes,  being  more 
frightened  than  hurt. 

There  is  something  intoxicating  and  exhila- 
rating in  yelling  in  unison  with  several  thou- 
sand people,  just  as  you  do  when  your  pinch 
hitter  bangs  out  a  hit  and  wins  the  game.  The 
yell  that  goes  up  from  that  eager  throng  on 


such  an  occasion  is  barbaric  and  grand,  like 
the  music  of  the  sea. 

I  always  go  home  from  a  game  tired,  but 
happy,  and  sure  of  a  better  night's  sleep  for  the 
thrilling  afternoon's  sport.  My  own  restricted 
activities  in  athletics  make  me  turn  with  even 
more  zest  to  the  great  American  game,  which 
does  so  much  each  year  to  tan  the  faces  and 
harden  the  sinews  of  the  American  baseball 
public.  So  baseball  will  always  find  an  ardent 
champion  in  myself,  and  I  know  of  hundreds 
of  tired  business  men  who  turn  to  this  clean 
exciting  game  for  recreation  and  pleasure,  and 
to  escape  the  grind  of  their  daily  business  life. 
Long  live  the  great  American  game! 

The  football  season  follows  closely  upon  the 
heels  of  baseball,  and  while  I  do  not  attend 
many  football  games,  yet  I  am  always  inter- 
ested in  the  big  games  played  by  the  colleges. 
Each  Wednesday  and  Saturday  evening  I  get 
the  scores  through  the  courtesy  of  the  New 
England  telephone  people  at  least  half  a  day 
before  they  appear  in  the  newspapers  of  the 
country.  In  the  case  of  the  Harvard,  Yale, 


144i       HITTING   THE    DARK   TRAIL 

and  Princeton  games,  I  always  get  the  score 
by  quarters  over  the  telephone  as  fast  as  the 
game  is  played,  and  I  always  know  the  final 
results  very  soon  after  the  whistle  blows. 

Each  Autumn  on  election  evening  I  get 
election  returns  in  the  same  way.  A  small 
company  of  my  neighbors  usually  gather  at 
my  house,  and  I  sit  at  the  telephone  and  give 
them  the  returns  as  fast  as  they  come  over  the 
wire. 

I  have  always  believed  in  living  in  the  pres- 
ent; not  only  to-day,  but  the  very  present  in- 
stant. News  that  is  a  day  or  two  days  old  has 
lost  its  interest  for  me. 

With  the  coming  of  Autumn  Mrs.  Hawkes 
and  myself  always  renew  our  interest  in  the 
theatrical  and  concert  season.  There  is  a  fine 
concert  course  each  year  at  Smith  College,  to 
which  we  always  subscribe,  and  this,  with  con- 
certs at  Amherst  College,  and  miscellaneous 
musicals  at  Northampton,  give  us  a  generous 
musical  year. 

Then  there  is  the  municipal  theater  at 
Northampton,  the  only  one  of  the  kind  in  the 


PASTIMES    AND    RECREATIONS      145 

United  States.  This  theater  presents  a  new 
play  each  week  through  its  excellent  stock 
company.  The  plays  are  not  the  very  latest 
successes,  but  the  successes  of  last  year,  and 
some  old  favorites.  Here  we  attend  thirty  or 
forty  plays  each  winter. 

The  Winter  season  is  also  the  time  when  we 
do  a  great  deal  of  reading.  I  mean  each  Win- 
ter to  skim  over  all  the  best  sellers  in  order  to 
know  what  is  uppermost  in  current  publica- 
tions. Most  of  the  new  magazines  find  their 
way  to  our  reading  table ;  thus  reading,  music, 
and  the  theater  provide  an  interesting  Winter. 

Then,  wlien  we  are  tired  of  reading,  there 
are  many  indoor  games  of  which  I  am  pas- 
sionately fond.  I  have  always  enjoyed  any 
game  that  offered  a  good  contest,  whether  it 
be  of  brawn  or  brain.  So  I  get  a  great  deal  of 
pleasure  from  whist,  cribbage,  and  pinochle, 
not  to  mention  over  a  score  of  other  card  games 
that  I  play,  my  pack  being  marked  by  the 
braille  system.  I  can  run  these  cards  through  \ 
my  hands,  feeling  the  dots,  and  play  as  readily 
as  any  one.  Checkers  and  chess  I  also  used  to 


146        HITTING   THE    DAflK   TRAIL 

play,  but  of  late  years  I  find  them  too  arduous 
after  a  day  of  hard  writing. 

The  Northampton  Club,  to  which  I  belong, 
affords  a  pleasant  place  to  meet  business  men, 
lawyers,  and  doctors,  who  like  to  get  together 
and  chat,  play  whist,  and  talk  politics.  The 
S.  A.  R.  and  several  men's  church  clubs  round 
out  my  Winter's  sociability.  I  have  always 
made  it  a  business  as  well  as  a  pleasure  to  cul- 
tivate men  and  women.  To  be  a  good  mixer 
is,  according  to  my  creed,  most  important.  A 
writer  must  know  his  fellow  men,  and  he  can- 
not know  them  without  being  with  them  and  of 
them.  So  I  have  always  made  it  a  business  to 
know  everybody,  and  to  like  every  one  who  is 
likable.  Men  and  women  are  the  compound 
from  which  I  mix  the  elixir  of  life. 

Find  good  in  every  one,  and  the  world  will 
find  good  in  you. 

Be  a  friend  to  every  one,  and  you  will  have 
friends. 

Live  in  the  present,  or  you  will  not  live  at 
all.  The  past  is  merely  a  retrospect,  and  the 
future  is  merely  a  dream  which  you  may  not 


PASTIMES    AND    RECREATIONS      147 

live  to  realize;  but  the  present,  that  tiny  sec- 
ond which  we  may  grasp  as  it  flies,  is  ours — 
ours  to  fight  in  and  succeed  in ;  ours  to  live  and 
be  loved  in ;  and  it  is  about  the  only  thing  that 
we  really  possess  in  this  evanescent  life. 

So  I  grasp  each  moment  as  it  flies  as  though 
it  were  my  last,  and  squeeze  out  of  it  every 
last  particle  of  truth  and  beauty  that  it  pos- 
sesses ;  each  grain  of  hope  and  cheer,  each  iota 
of  love  and  friendship ;  for  of  these  things,  and 
these  alone,  life  is  made  up. 


CHAPTER    IX 

THE    PSYCHOLOGY   OF   BLIND- 
NESS 

Having  all  one's  landmarks  swept  away — The  depress- 
ing effect  of  perennial  darkness — A  sunshine  fac- 
tory— The  ceaseless  battle — Character  in  the  human 
voice — Tone-color,  and  a  smile  seen  by  telephone — 
The  voice  indicates  age,  health,  and  disposition — 
Readjusting  one's  soul  and  body  to  blindness — 
Scientific  tone  color  as  noted  in  music — The  sixth 
sense — How  the  sixth  sense  aids  the  blind — Scien- 
tific explanation  of  the  sixth  sense — Telepathy  and 
reading  character  and  motives — Introspection  as  a 
result  of  blindness — Stars  in  my  endless  night. 

I  CAN  conceive  of  few  more  radical  changes 
in  the  life  of  an  individual  than  that  of  going 
from  the  world  of  light  and  color,  scintillating 
with  beauty,  to  that  other  world  of  endless 
darkness,  heavy  with  its  somber  shades  of  per- 
petual gloom.  Perhaps  the  first  and  most 
vivid  sense  that  one  has  in  coming  into  the 
world  of  darkness  is  a  feeling  of  unreality,  and 

148 


PSYCHOLOGY    OF   BLINDNESS       149 

if  you  will  stop  to  consider  you  will  easily 
understand  this  statement.  Many  a  time  in 
your  own  life,  when  kept  awake  by  pain  or 
anxiety,  you  have  been  impressed  with  the 
unreality  of  night.  All  its  shapes  and  sounds 
were  unreal,  eerie,  and  uncertain.  And  how 
welcome  was  daylight  to  dispel  these  illusive, 
uncertain  shadows ! 

Next  to  the  unreality  of  perennial  night  is 
its  depressing  effect.  There  is  a  heaviness 
about  perpetual  darkness  that  is  very  hard  to 
dispel.  Light  breeds  cheerfulness.  The  very 
sunbeams  smile  and  dance,  and  one  cannot  help 
but  smile  with  them;  while  shadows  have  just 
the  opposite  effect. 

Often  one  goes  into  a  house  where  all  the 
blinds  are  kept  shut,  and  where  there  is  such  a 
depressing  air,  because  of  the  gloomy  effect, 
that  one  breathes  a  sigh  of  relief  when  the  open 
daylight  is  reached.  So  it  is  in  the  world  where 
the  shutters  are  always  closed.  There  is  a 
sense  of  unreality  and  a  depression  and  re- 
pression that  are  very  hard  to  shake  off. 

And  yet  in  the  face  of  this  statement  we 


150        HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

have  the  fact  that  blind  people  are  as  a  class 
surprisingly  cheerful  and  full  of  sunlight. 
The  very  natural  question  follows,  how  do  they 
do  it?  They  manage  it,  just  as  all  arduous 
achievements  are  performed,  through  their 
courage  and  splendid  optimism, — courage  and 
optimism  that  are  not  in  any  sense  theirs  be- 
cause of  their  affliction,  but  characteristics 
which  have  been  cultivated,  patiently  and  cour- 
ageously, through  weary  hours  of  darkness  and 
despair. 

I  know  many  blind  people,  and  I  am  sure 
that  they  are  the  most  courageous  people  in 
the  whole  world.  They  give  back  the  most  hope 
and  cheer,  love  and  friendship,  for  what  they 
receive  at  the  hands  of  fate,  of  any  class  of 
people  that  exist.  Life  to  them  is  a  battle  and 
a  struggle,  which  never  ends.  They  must  fight 
for  hope  and  cheer,  laughter  and  happiness, 
every  inch  of  the  way  along  life's  path. 

I  have  seen  old  dependent  blind  women, 
living  in  a  home  for  the  blind,  whose  lives 
seemed  so  bare  and  meager  to  me  that  it  made 
my  heart  ache  just  to  talk  with  them,  and  yet 


PSYCHOLOGY   OF   BLINDNESS       151 

they  were  cheerful  and  happy,  always  looking 
on  the  sunny  side  and  telling  of  their  bless- 
ings. Their  courage  to  me  was  the  most  in- 
spiring and  beautiful  thing  that  I  ever  wit- 
nessed. 

The  unreality  experienced  in  losing  eyesight 
is  probably  enhanced  by  having  one's  friends, 
the  faces  and  forms  that  we  loved,  metamor- 
phosed into  mere  voices, — voices  that  stand 
about  us  in  the  shadows,  tender  and  loving,  yet 
so  different  from  the  faces  we  knew.  From 
this  fact  the  voice  comes  to  mean  much  more 
to  the  blind  person  than  to  the  seeing.  One 
without  sight  notices  the  slightest  variation  of 
feeling  in  the  voice.  Sympathy,  mirth,  or 
pathos  is  expressed  as  freely  and  fully  in  the 
voice  as  in  the  face. 

Health  also  is  very  noticeable  in  the  voice, 
and  the  absence  of  health  likewise.  There  is  a 
tired  voice,  a  mirthful  voice,  a  despairing  voice, 
a  voice  for  all  the  varying  shades  of  pain  and 
pleasure.  The  voice  also  is  a  sure  barometer  of 
age.  I  can  tell  a  person's  age  as  readily  by 
his  voice  as  you  can  by  his  looks. 


152        HITTING   THE   DARK    TRAIL 

The  loss  of  eyesight  seems  for  a  time  to  up- 
set the  perfect  working  of  the  entire  nervous 
system.  The  nerves  have  to  adjust  themselves 
to  new  conditions  and  rearrange  the  channels 
of  communication.  On  first  losing  one's  sight 
one  is  impressed  with  the  fact  that  all  noises 
sound  much  too  loud.  Every  one  speaks 
louder  than  he  used  to,  and  as  for  sharp  sudden 
noises,  they  make  one  fairly  jump  out  of  his 
skin.  I  do  not  know  whether  this  is  because 
the  nerves  are  overwrought,  or  because  a  part 
of  the  sight  nervous  energy  is  deflected  to 
sound  nerves,  but  certain  it  is  that  it  takes 
several  months  for  sounds  to  get  toned  down 
to  a  normal  volume,  and  one  never  quite  over- 
comes the  tendency  to  jump  at  sharp  sounds. 

Then  one  is  immediately,  on  losing  sight,  im- 
pressed with  the  fact  that  all  the  senses  are 
interdependent  and  considerably  mixed  up. 
We  speak  of  tone  color,  and  to  a  great  many 
people  the  phrase  is  meaningless;  but  it  is  a 
very  real  thing,  and  to  myself,  as  well  as  to 
many  other  people  who  have  seen  and  then  lost 
their  sight,  all  musical  or  prolonged  sound  has 


PSYCHOLOGY    OF    BLINDNESS        155 

color.  As  a  general  rule,  the  higher  the  pitch 
of  the  tone  the  higher  keyed  is  the  color,  and 
the  lower  the  pitch  of  the  tone  the  darker  the 
color. 

The  middle  register  of  the  piano  or  organ, 
or  of  the  human  voice  for  the  same  pitch,  is 
dull  red,  and  as  the  pitch  ascends  it  goes  to 
light  red,  and  pink,  and  very  light  yellow,  up 
to  white,  until  in  the  eighth  octave  there  is  no 
color  at  all,  just  as  to  some  people  there  is  no 
sound  discernible  in  this  octave.  From  the 
middle  register  of  the  human  voice  or  the  pi- 
ano, the  color  descends  to  purple,  deep  blue, 
and  finally  black,  and  the  very  lowest  notes 
have  no  perceptible  color. 

This  absence  of  color  in  the  lowest  notes  has 
a  perfect  corollary  in  sound,  for  I  remember 
reading  an  article  by  Mr.  Thayer,  the  cele- 
brated organist,  who  said  that  there  were  tones 
in  the  thunder  of  Niagara  Falls  which  he  could 
hear,  and  which  the  average  ear  could  not  dis- 
cern at  all  because  of  their  low  pitch. 

In  the  same  way,  but  to  a  less  degree,  the 
senses  of  touch  and  feeling  are  interdependent. 


154        HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

To  pass  my  hand  over  the  plush  on  the  car 
seats  in  a  railroad  train  always  gives  me  a 
bitter-taste  sensation, — a  puckery  taste  similar 
to  that  of  wild  chokecherries.  For  several 
months  after  first  losing  my  sight  the  taste  of 
certain  kinds  of  food  gave  me  a  sensation  of 
color,  but  this  gradually  wore  off. 

Probably  the  strangest  of  all  the  psychical 
phenomena  connected  with  blindness  is  a  sort 
of  sixth  sense  that  all  blind  people  possess  to 
a  greater  or  less  degree.  This  is  a  sort  of 
physical  sight  or  discernment.  By  means  of 
it  a  person  without  sight  is  enabled  to  discern 
solid  objects  to  a  distance  of  eight  or  ten  feet 
away,  and  if  the  object  is  large,  such  as  the 
side  of  a  house,  even  farther  away.  This  is 
the  very  greatest  help,  and  it  is  through  this 
sense  that  blind  people  make  their  way  about 
unaided.  Of  course  sound  also  helps  them, 
and  that  very  useful  cane  that  all  blind  people 
carry. 

Science  has  never  fully  determined  what  the 
source  of  this  sixth  sense  is,  or  just  how  it 
works.  A  body  must  have  some  surface  to  be 


PSYCHOLOGY    OF    BLINDNESS        155 

discerned.  My  own  worst  enemy  is  the  partly 
open  door,  the  thin  edge  of  which  I  do  not  dis- 
cern quickly  enough,  if  I  am  moving  about 
rapidly,  to  avoid  a  collision.  Objects  low 
down,  near  the  ground  or  the  floor,  are  also 
hard  to  discern  by  this  sixth  sense,  and  are  a 
great  stumbling  block. 

Men  of  science  advance  two  or  three  theories 
concerning  this  sense.  Some  say  that  the  blind 
discern  physically  through  very  sensitive 
nerves  in  the  face,  and  I  think  this  is  partly 
true,  as  with  the  face  covered  this  sense  is 
greatly  reduced.  Others  say  that  it  is  through 
the  sense  of  hearing,  and  I  think  there  is  also 
truth  in  that  assertion,  as  the  echo  which  is 
always  present,  although  very  slight,  is  of  un- 
questionable help.  Still  other  men  of  science 
say  that  the  air  between  yourself  and  a  solid 
object  which  you  are  approaching  becomes 
more  dense  from  the  repression  in  the  approach 
of  two  solid  bodies,  and  there  is  truth  in  that 
statement  as  well.  So  this  sixth  sense,  if  such 
it  be,  probably  depends  upon  three  conditions : 
namely,  sound,  the  compression  of  the  air,  and 


156       HITTING   THE    DARK    TRAIL 

whether  the  face  be  free  to  use  its  sensitive 
feelers. 

There  can  be  no  question  that  all  the  per- 
ceptive faculties  of  the  most  intellectual  of  the 
blind  are  greatly  quickened,  and  all  those  bits 
of  knowledge  which  we  gather  through  the  in- 
tuitions, they  are  past  masters  of. 

I  read  the  thoughts  of  most  people  very 
readily.  I  do  not  mean  that,  if  you  were  to 
think  of  something  and  ask  me  to  tell  you  what 
you  had  in  mind,  I  would  have  the  slightest 
knowledge  of  what  it  was.  But  if  you  were  off 
your  guard,  and  talking  with  me,  all  the  little 
reservations,  the  parenthetical  things  which 
you  might  think  and  not  put  into  words,  would 
be  very  plain  to  me. 

In  the  same  way  I  am  conscious  of  good  and 
evil  in  people  to  a  remarkable  degree.  Good- 
ness attracts  me,  and  vice  repels  me  much  more 
strongly  than  it  does  a  seeing  person.  This 
sense  makes  an  acute  blind  person  a  very  good 
judge  of  character,  even  though  the  face, 
which  is  such  a  good  index  of  character,  cannot 
be  seen. 


PSYCHOLOGY    OF   BLINDNESS       157 

The  psychological  elements  in  our  makeup, 
—greed,  envy,  hate,  faith,  hope,  and  love, — 
are  all  so  actual  and  real  to  me  that  I  wrote  a 
play  last  year  giving  all  these  characteristics 
speaking  parts.  It  is  a  sort  of  morality  drama, 
in  which  I  hope  some  time  to  show  my  friends 
the  very  vivid  psychical  world  in  which  we  live 
and  fight  the  battle  of  life. 

Perhaps  one  of  the  queerest  things  that 
come  to  me  through  the  darkness  is  the  percep- 
tion of  a  smile,  which  to  me  is  always  luminous, 
a  sort  of  spiritual  ray  which  is  not  dependent 
upon  the  human  eye  to  carry  its  message  of 
light  and  cheer. 

Did  you  ever  notice,  when  some  friend 
smiles,  a  sort  of  luminosity  about  the  lips  and 
eyes?  You  might  not  notice  it  once  in  a  hun- 
dred or  a  thousand  times,  but  I  remember  it 
well  as  a  child  when  I  had  eyesight.  To  me 
now,  living  in  darkness,  the  smile  of  nearly 
every  one  has  a  luminosity  about  it, — that  is, 
every  one  who  knows  how  to  smile.  Some  peo- 
ple never  smile,  while  others  only  show  their 
teeth.  But  every  one  who  lets  his  soul  shine 


158        HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

out  of  his  face  when  he  smiles  sends  me  a  ray 
of  spiritual  light  which  is  like  a  bright  sunbeam 
falling  through  a  chink  in  the  shutter  into  a 
dark  room. 

If  you  were  talking  over  the  telephone  to 
me  from  a  hundred  miles  away,  and  sent  me  a 
smile,  I  would  get  this  spiritual  sunbeam  just 
as  readily  as  though  you  were  right  here  in  the 
room.  I  think  this  phenomenon  belongs  to 
that  class  of  luminous  apearances  ascribed  in 
all  sacred  writings  to  the  spirit.  The  light  of 
the  eye  and  the  light  of  the  soul  will  probably 
some  day  be  very  real,  understandable  things. 
When  we  shall  become  a  little  less  material, 
and  shall  approach  a  little  nearer  to  the  source 
of  life,  which  itself  is  light  and  energy,  then  all 
these  things  will  be  made  plain. 

The  great  consolation  that  comes  to  me 
from  blindness  is  that  it  has  caused  me  to  stop 
to  think,  and  to  analyze,  to  consider  and  ap- 
preciate, where  otherwise  I  should  probably 
have  hurried  along  with  the  crowd,  the  vast 
majority  of  people,  who  eat,  sleep,  work,  and 
chase  the  mighty  dollar,  without  ever  asking 


PSYCHOLOGY   OF   BLINDNESS       159 

themselves,  Where  am  I  going?  What  am  I 
doing  on  this  earthly  pilgrimage?  What 
does  life  mean  to  me,  and  what  truth  and 
beauty,  love  and  friendship,  can  I  get  out  of 
it? 

The  mind  held  in  check  by  a  physical  limi- 
tation like  blindness  naturally  turns  inward. 
It  analyzes  and  considers,  it  constructs  and 
creates.  The  outside  world  has  been  to  a  cer- 
tain degree  taken  away  from  it,  so  it  makes  a 
world  of  its  own.  The  only  trouble  with  this 
is  that  such  a  mind  becomes  a  two-edged 
sword,  and  with  too  much  thinking  it  tends  to 
reduce  life  to  those  ashes  that  all  material  life 
really  comes  to  in  the  end. 

To  offset  this  tendency  I  prescribe  for  my- 
self much  that  is  external.  I  mix  with  the 
world  and  know  people.  I  try  to  march 
shoulder  to  shoulder  with  my  seeing  brother, 
avoiding  the  rough  places  where  he  can  step 
with  confidence,  but  still  climbing,  e'en 
though  it  be  sometimes  by  a  devious  way,  to 
the  heights — the  heights  of  truth,  beauty  and 
peace. 


160       HITTING   THE    DARK   TRAIL 

If  night  has  overtaken  me  at  noonday,  yet 
have  I  found  beauty  in  night.  The  sun  at 
noontide  showed  me  the  world  and  all  its  won- 
ders, but  the  night  has  shown  me  the  universe, 
the  countless  stars  and  illimitable  space,  the 
vastness  and  the  wonder  of  all  life.  The  per- 
fect day  only  showed  me  man's  world,  but  the 
night  showed  me  God's  universe. 

Though  the  night  has  brought  me  pain,  and 
often  discouragement,  yet  in  it  I  have  heard 
the  stars  sing  together,  and  learned  to  know 
nature,  and  through  nature  to  look  up  to  na- 
ture's God. 


CHAPTER    X 
ON    THE   DARK    TRAIL 

The  light  of  the  spirit — Blindness  a  twenty-five  per  cent, 
handicap  in  the  work  of  life — Endless  courage  is  the 
only  armor — Never  admitting  the  impossible — De- 
signing and  managing  a  great  parade — Directing 
hundreds  of  workers — Thirty  thousand  people  come 
to  view  our  parade — Flattering  offers  to  direct  other 
pageants — My  three  P's  again — Doing  all  sorts  of 
work  about  home — A  respite  for  a  breathing  spell — 
The  consolation  of  a  blind  friend — Sympathy  and 
the  world  war — Helen  Keller  as  an  inspiration — A 
good  fighter — Blindness  a  blessing  in  disguise — 
Competing  with  college  men  and  women — A  desire 
to  travel  and  see  the  world — Be  strong! 

THE  trail  that  I  have  followed  so  ardu- 
ously for  the  past  thirty-one  years,  and  which 
I  must  follow  for  the  rest  of  my  days,  is  a 
dark  and  lonely  one,  and  I  should  despair  of 
ever  keeping  it  to  the  end  of  the  journey, 
were  it  not  for  the  inner  light, — the  light  of 
the  spirit,  which  never  was  on  sea  or  land,  and 

161 


162        HITTING   THE   DARK    TRAIL 

which  has  sustained  me  through  many  crises 
of  my  life. 

It  seems  strange,  though,  when  I  stop  to 
think,  and  I  do  not  often,  that  you,  my 
brother,  walk  along  the  trail  of  life  in  full  day- 
light, with  the  dancing  sunbeams,  and  the 
shimmering  landscape,  the  blue  vaulted  dome 
of  heaven,  and  the  green  carpeted  earth,  all 
spread  out  before  you,  while  I,  your  compan- 
ion, who  walk  by  your  side,  feel  my  way  cir- 
cumspectly along  the  trail  in  total  darkness. 

From  a  careful  consideration  of  all  the  facts 
in  the  case,  I  am  confident  that  blindness  is  a 
twenty-five  per  cent  handicap  in  the  work  of 
life,  no  matter  what  profession  you  adopt. 
The  blind  person  in  order  to  succeed  equally 
with  the  seeing,  must  put  in  one  hundred  and 
twenty-five  per  cent  of  energy  before  he  can 
stand  abreast  of  his  seeing  competitor.  Not 
only  must  he  work  ten  hours  where  you  work 
eight,  but  he  must  also  put  much  more  pa- 
tience into  each  of  his  ten  hours'  work  than 
you  do  into  your  eight. 

Where  you  reach  out  and  put  your  hand  di- 


ON    THE    DARK    TRAIL  163 

rectly  upon  the  tool  with  which  you  are 
working,  he  must  grope  for  it.  A  hundred  lit- 
tle devices  he  must  invent  all  the  way  along  the 
trail,  no  matter  whether  he  be  a  musician,  a 
lawyer,  a  broommaker  or  a  piano  tuner.  His 
shortest  way  home  is  usually  the  longest  way 
around. 

My  own  success,  what  little  I  have  attained, 
I  ascribe  entirely  to  my  three  P's,  patience, 
perseverance,  and  pluck,  which  alone  have 
kept  me  to  my  work  for  so  many  arduous 
years. 

Courage  a  blind  person  must  have  above 
everything  else.  He  must  be  literally  steeped 
in  it.  It  will  not  do  to  have  just  an  ordinary 
temporary  supply,  for  the  thing  in  hand;  for 
if  all  you  have  is  just  the  ordinary  supply  al- 
lotted to  the  average  seeing  man,  you  will  run 
out  in  a  single  day.  But  you  must  have  cour- 
age that  is  perennial, — a  ceaseless  fount  of  it, 
—courage  for  the  morning,  courage  for  the 
noonday,  and  courage  for  the  evening. 

Not  only  must  you  have  courage,  but  you 
must  have  daring.  You  must  have  the  cour- 


164        HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

age  and  the  daring  to  do  all  sorts  of  impos- 
sible things  that  all  your  best  friends  tell  you 
you  cannot,  for  some  of  your  best  friends  are 
sure  to  put  the  most  obstacles  in  your  path  by 
telling  you  this  or  that  undertaking  is  impos- 
sible. I  have  never  for  a  moment  admitted 
that  I  could  not  do  anything  that  was  within 
the  bounds  of  reason,  and  many  things  I  have 
done  which  seem  as  incredible  as  a  fairy  story. 
I  will  merely  give  one  example  to  illustrate. 

The  historical  old  town  of  Hadley,  in  which 
I  live,  celebrated  its  two  hundred  and  fiftieth 
anniversary  in  the  summer  of  1909.  I  have 
always  made  it  a  rule  to  be  interested  in  civic 
life,  so  was  interested  in  that  celebration. 

Nearly  a  year  before  the  event  came  off  I 
became  interested  in  a  plan  for  presenting  at 
the  time  a  great  historical  pageant  or  parade 
on  wheels.  I  had  never  seen  a  pageant  or 
parade  in  my  whole  life,  but  somehow  I  had  a 
very  good  idea  of  how  it  looked.  So  the  execu- 
tive committee  on  the  celebration  finally  ap- 
pointed me  as  a  committee  of  one  to  draw  up 
a  plan  for  such  a  parade. 


ON    THE    DARK    TRAIL  165 

I  consulted  with  men  in  this  part  of  the 
state  who  have  handled  civic  parades,  which 
were  quite  different  from  what  I  had  in  mind, 
and  finally  I  presented  a  typewritten  plan  for 
a  historical  parade.  This  report  covered  twen- 
ty-two typewritten  pages,  and  went  into  great 
detail. 

I  was  then  appointed  permanent  chairman 
of  a  large  parade  committee  and  we  set  to 
work  to  carry  out  my  plans.  Twenty  of  the 
floats  which  finally  figured  in  the  parade  I  de- 
signed myself,  writing  out  several  pages  of 
specifications  for  each  float.  I  divided  my 
committee  into  ten  smaller  committees  and 
set  each  subcommittee  to  work  on  a  float  by 
itself. 

We  next  turned  the  town  into  an  artificial 
flower  manufactory,  and  thousands  of  beauti- 
ful crepe  paper  chrysanthemums,  roses  and 
poppies  were  made. 

After  a  year  of  the  most  arduous  work  that 
I  ever  undertook,  during  the  last  month  of 
which  I  stayed  constantly  at  the  telephone  and 
hardly  had  time  for  my  meals,  the  parade  was 


166       HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

complete.  It  consisted  of  forty  beautiful  his- 
torical floats,  and  twenty  or  thirty  decorated 
carriages  and  automobiles,  the  whole  extend- 
ing in  a  line,  when  formed  for  the  march, 
reaching  two  miles,  and  taking  an  hour  to  pass 
a  given  point. 

There  were  seven  hundred  people  in  the 
parade  and  nearly  two  hundred  horses,  and 
the  whole  formed  one  of  the  most  imposing 
historical  spectacles  ever  seen  in  America. 
That  was  what  the  newspapers  of  New  Eng- 
land and  New  York  said.  I  did  not  see  the 
parade,  so  I  cannot  judge. 

But  when  it  finally  passed  by  the  reviewing 
stand  where  I  sat,  there  was  not  a  float  in  the 
whole  procession  that  I  did  not  have  a  perfect 
picture  of  in  my  mind,  for  had  I  not  created 
most  of  them?  I  knew  the  length  and  breadth 
of  each  float,  and  its  color  scheme ;  for  at  least 
twenty  of  the  color  schemes  I  had  studied  out 
myself  in  total  darkness. 

The  Lieutenant-Governor  of  Massachu- 
setts, who  was  in  attendance  with  30,000  other 
citizens  of  the  State,  said  that  our  parade  was 


se 

rt 
AH 

."2 

'S 


ON    THE    DARK    TRAIL  167 

the  equal  of  the  Champlain  parade,  which  he 
had  just  witnessed,  and  which  cost  many  thou- 
sands of  dollars,  while  ours  was  inexpensive; 
and  a  New  York  paper  in  a  two-column  edi- 
torial afterwards  said  that  our  parade  was 
better  planned  and  executed  than  was  the 
Hudson-Fulton  Parade,  which  had  been  the 
pride  of  New  York  City. 

Of  course  many  hundreds  of  men  and 
women  helped  to  make  the  parade  a  success, 
but  all  worked  under  my  supervision,  and  all 
carried  out  to  a  letter  the  twenty-two  pages 
of  typewritten  instructions  that  I  had  first 
drawn  up.  How  we  did  it  with  so  little  money 
is  a  mystery  to  me  now,  and  it  is  an  undertak- 
ing that  I  would  not  want  to  attempt  again. 
Several  times  since  I  have  received  flattering 
offers  to  do  similar  stunts  for  New  England 
cities,  but  I  have  always  refused.  One  will  do 
for  love  of  his  own  town  what  he  would  not  do 
for  money. 

I  merely  put  forward  this  description  of  our 
historical  parade  to  show  that  nothing,  no 
matter  how  seemingly  difficult,  is  really  impos- 


168       HITTING   THE    DARK   TRAIL 

sible  to  one  with  imagination  and  daring,  and 
with  a  generous  supply  of  courage,  supple- 
mented by  the  three  P's  of  patience,  persever- 
ance, and  pluck. 

Such  little  chores  as  sawing  and  splitting 
wood,  making  chicken  coops  and  mending  hen- 
yard  fences,  mowing  and  raking  on  the  lawn, 
cutting  out  sidewalks,  husking  corn,  and  simi- 
lar homely  work  I  have  always  taken  great 
pleasure  in.  I  find  these  tasks  that  I  can  per- 
form with  the  hands  a  pleasant  and  necessary- 
offset  to  my  strenuous  literary  life.  There  is 
nothing  else  in  the  world  that  is  quite  as  good 
a  safety-valve  for  both  the  body  and  the  spirit 
as  getting  into  a  good  perspiration.  One 
thing  there  is  that  is  a  constant  disappoint- 
ment to  me :  my  lameness  prevents  my  taking 
as  many  and  as  long  walks  as  I  would  like. 
I  can  conceive  of  no  more  quiet  and  satisfac- 
tory pleasure,  simple  though  it  be,  than  to  go 
for  a  half  day  in  the  woods,  with  a  bird  book, 
an  opera  glass,  and  a  keen  pair  of  eyes ;  or  per- 
haps even  better  than  that,  to  strap  one's 
knapsack  upon  one's  back  and  take  to  the 


ON    THE    DARK    TRAIL  169 

friendly  road,  just  tramping  where  the  spirit 
leads. 

I  often  think  that  if  the  dark  could  let  up 
for  a  week,  or  even  a  day,  and  I  could  get  one 
more  glimpse  of  the  green  fields  and  the  blue 
heaven,  I  could  go  back  to  my  lonely  exile  with 
new  courage  for  the  dark  days  ahead. 

Once  each  year  I  put  aside  work  to  visit  my 
alma  mater,  or  some  friends  with  whom  I  was 
chummy  at  school.  There  is  a  deal  of  comfort 
in  the  hearty  handshake  of  the  other  fellow 
who  is  also  hitting  the  dark  trail.  We  may  not 
say  anything  about  the  struggle,  but  we  both 
understand.  Besides,  one  can  always  forget 
his  own  perplexities  by  taking  an  interest  in 
the  other  fellow's  problem,  and  at  Perkins  In- 
stitute I  know  there  are  hundreds  of  boys  and 
girls  struggling  with  the  problems  that  I 
wrestled  with  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago  at 
the  same  school. 

I  usually  lecture  in  chapel,  or  give  them  a 
rousing  speech  in  the  classroom,  and  by  trying 
to  inspire  them  add  to  my  own  stock  of  in- 
spiration. 


170        HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

Sympathy  is  a  quality  that  blind  people 
possess  in  abundance,  but  I  often  wish  I  did 
not  have  so  much,  for  it  keeps  one  continually 
on  the  rack  for  the  other  fellow's  misfortune 
or  hard  luck. 

For  the  past  week  I  have  hardly  been  able 
to  get  out  of  my  mind  for  five  minutes  at  a 
time,  thoughts  of  the  two  mighty  phalanges 
of  bayonets,  stretching  from  north  of  Brussels 
for  two  hundred  and  fifty  miles  to  the  Swiss 
frontier,  where  the  longest  battle  line  ever 
seen  in  the  world's  history  is  formed.  Not 
only  do  I  think  of  these  millions  of  brothers, 
Germans,  Frenchmen,  Englishmen,  and  Bel- 
gians, all  lined  up  at  the  behest  of  Kaisers 
and  Czars,  ready  to  take  each  others'  lives,  but 
I  also  think  of  the  millions  of  mothers  and 
sweethearts,  children  and  wives — those  who 
fight  at  home — waiting  with  heavy  hearts  for 
news  from  the  front. 

When  I  think  of  this  thing  that  has  come  to 
pass  in  1914  among  Christian  nations,  repre~ 
senting  the  highest  civilization  of  the  world,  it 
seems  to  me  that  the  light  of  the  world  is 


ON    THE    DARK    TRAIL  171 

eclipsed,  and  a  darkness  a  million  times  worse 
than  blindness  has  overspread  the  earth. 

You  may  wonder  while  you  read  these 
pages  how  I  write  books.  It  is  very  simple, 
just  as  most  things  turn  out  to  be  if  you  grasp 
them  with  a  strong  hand.  I  am  sitting  at  a 
Fox  typewriter  while  my  own  supple  fingers 
fly  over  the  keys,  clicking  out  from  thirty  to 
forty  words  per  minute.  That  is  much  better 
than  dictating  to  a  third  party,  who  might 
frighten  away  my  muse,  for  she  is  rather 
capricious  and  often  will  not  come  when  I  call 
for  her. 

If  I  get  discouraged  along  the  dark  trail  I 
have  merely  to  think  of  someone  else  who  is 
worse  off  than  myself,  or  who  has  accomplished 
more  than  I  have  under  similar  handicap,  and 
that  makes  me  ashamed  and  sets  me  to  my 
task  again.  Helen  Keller  in  darkness  and  si- 
lence has  contributed  more  to  the  world's  cour- 
age and  heroism  than  a  whole  regiment  of  sol- 
diers, and  dear  old  Fanny  Crosby,  for  over 
ninety  years  in  total  darkness,  went  on  singing 
her  songs  of  Faith  and  Glory.  Truly  the 


172        HITTING   THE   DARK   TRAIL 

world  is  full  of  heroes  and  heroines,  and  if  you 
and  I  do  not  want  to  be  left  far  behind  we 
will  have  to  polish  up  our  rusty  weapons  and 
get  into  the  fight  with  new  zest. 

Above  all  men  I  love  a  good  fighter.  By 
that  I  do  not  mean  a  scrapper,  but  a  man  who 
will  fight  to  the  very  last  gasp  for  the  best 
things  in  life.  Such  a  battle,  even  though  it 
be  waged  for  as  small  a  thing  as  keeping  one's 
face  wreathed  with  smiles,  is  important.  To 
do  good,  be  good,  and  smile  always  is  a 
fine  motto,  but  a  very  difficult  one  to  live  up 
to. 

I  take  help  in  this  battle  of  life  wherever  I 
find  it.  If  it  be  real  help  I  do  not  worry 
whether  it  is  orthodox  or  heterodox,  for  good 
is  greater  than  creed,  and  we  are  all  after  re- 
sults. So  when  the  spirit  grows  heavy  and 
the  body  weak  I  often  turn  to  some  uplift 
book.  Perhaps  it  is  called  New  Thought,  or 
maybe  Christian  Science,  but  it  does  not  mat- 
ter to  me  by  what  name  it  is  called  as  long  as 
the  pure  gold  is  there. 

No  person  with  a  heavy  load  to  bear  can 


ON    THE    DARK    TRAIL  178 

carry  it  wholly  by  his  own  strength;  he  must 
draw  strength  from  all  about  him, — from  his 
friends,  his  fellow  strugglers,  the  earth,  the 
air,  and  from  the  blue  heavens. 

Life,  if  we  really  live,  is  light  and  joy,  and 
these  things  are  love, — love  for  one's  fellow 
men  and  for  God's  beautiful  universe.  And 
love  is  also  brotherhood, — the  perfect  chain  of 
humanity  with  the  diadem  of  love  at  the  cen- 
ter. 

I  can  truly  say  that  blindness  has  been  a 
blessing  to  me,  although  the  trail  has  been 
dark  and  the  way  long.  If  I  still  possessed 
my  sight,  I  would  probably  be  tilling  a  little 
farm  in  the  western  part  of  the  town  of  Ash- 
field,  and  without  eyesight  I  have  done  better 
things  than  that.  That  I  would  have  been 
happier  on  the  surface  with  eyes  goes  without 
saying,  but  the  deep  satisfaction  that  there  is 
in  a  good  fight  and  things  accomplished  under 
adverse  circumstances  would  never  have  been 
mine.  So  I  am  both  willing  and  glad  to  trust 
the  Power  that  shapes  our  end  for  the  fulfill- 
ment of  life,  trusting  for  that  courage  I  shall 


174        HITTING    THE    DARK    TRAIL 

need  each  day  to  follow  to  the  very  end  the 
dark  trail. 

Others  have  followed  it,  and  why  not  I? 
Milton  was  probably  a  greater  poet  and  saw 
holier  visions  because  of  his  affliction.  In  ad- 
versity he  found  both  strength  and  inspira- 
tion. 

Before  you  close  the  pages  of  this  little 
book  let  me  tell  you  of  two  of  my  vanities,  for 
although  I  have  been  schooled  by  a  hard  tutor, 
yet  I  am  human. 

All  my  life  I  have  had  to  compete  with  col- 
lege-trained men  and  women,  doing  such  work 
as  is  usually  undertaken  only  by  those  of  the 
broadest  culture,  while  the  only  training  that 
I  have  had  has  been  at  the  college  of  Hard 
Knocks.  By  arduous  study  and  wide  reading 
I  have  acquired  nearly  the  equivalent  of  a  col- 
lege course,  but  I  have  no  diploma  to  show 
for  all  my  labor.  So  it  is  my  dream  that  some 
college  or  university  will  some  day  be  good 
enough  to  give  me  academic  recognition. 

My  second  vanity  is  like  unto  the  first,  for 
I  have  long  dreamed  of  the  day  (which  seems 


ON    THE    DARK    TRAIL  175 

as  distant  as  ever)  when  I  shall  earn  money 
enough  to  be  able  to  travel,  and  thus  supple- 
ment my  limited  training  with  that  broaden- 
ing, humanizing  experience,  a  glimpse  of  the 
world.  If  I  could  see  the  world,  even  though 
through  the  eyes  of  my  friends,  it  would  give 
me  an  infinite  amount  of  pleasure. 

Like  other  vain  mortals  I  have  dreams  of 
automobiles,  piano  players,  and  many  other 
luxuries,  but  my  longing  to  travel  eclipses  all 
the  rest.  But  I  am  afraid  these  things  are 
not  for  me.  Mine  has  been  the  hard  straight 
road,  with  a  stiff  fight  always  ahead. 

Let  me  leave  with  you,  dear  friend,  as  a 
parting  thought  a  little  poem  by  M.  D.  Bab- 
cock,  which  expresses  as  much  of  my  creed  and 
life's  philosophy  as  can  be  gotten  into  a  limited 
space.  It  is  a  true  Life's  Battle  Song,  and 
the  best  I  have  to  offer. 


BE    STRONG 
Be  strong! 

We  are  not  here  to  play,  to  dream,  to  drift; 
We  have  hard  work  to  do,  and  loads  to  lift; 
Shun  not  the  struggle — face  it;  'tis  God's  gift. 


176       HITTING   THE   DARK   TRAIL 

Be  strong! 

Say  not,  "The  days  are  evil.    Who's  to  blame?" 
And  fold  the  hands  and  acquiesce.     O,  shame ! 
Stand  up,  speak  out,  and  bravely,  in  God's  name. 

Be  strong! 

It  matters  not  how  deep  entrenched  the  wrong, 
How  hard  the  battle  goes,  the  day  how  long; 
Faint  not — fight  on !    To-morrow  comes  the  song. 


THE  END 


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